58. Justin McLeod

Founder and CEO, Hinge

In December, the dating app based on third-degree Facebook connections raised a $12 million series A round, led by Shasta Ventures, bringing the company up to a total $20.6 million raised since it launched in 2012. Not bad for an app that nearly tanked less than a year after it launched, only to survive by the skin of its teeth with an app launch party that gained it the much-needed users that make it now one of Silicon Alley's hottest startups, and an incredibly viable competitor to Tinder.

Like Tinder, Hinge matches users with nearby singles, but takes the matching process one step further by only searching for people with whom the user has at least one Facebook friend in common, eliminating the randomness that makes many of Tinder's potential users skeptical.