• by Sara Guaglione , March 11, 2020

For its first ranking of America’s best startup employers, Forbes partnered with market-research company Statista to identify the startup companies liked best by employees.

Media companies on the list were sports-focused The Athletic and politics-media site Axios.

DraftKings, a fantasy sports site, and SenSiMediaGroup, a Denver-based media company that publishes city lifestyle magazine Sensi, also made the list.

Other media companies included in the ranking were FreightWaves, an industry news publisher that covers freight, logistics, cargo and transportation; Pocket.watch, a studio that partners with creators to produce content and products for kids; and Giphy, a platform for GIFs and animated stickers.

The Forbes list was compiled by evaluating 2,500 American businesses founded between 2010 and 2017, with at least 50 employees.

Statista evaluated the companies based on three criteria: employer reputation, employee satisfaction and growth.

For employer reputation, Statista reviewed articles, blogs and social media posts about each employer, and searched for phrases like “corporate culture” and “employee engagement.” 

Statista assessed employee satisfaction by evaluating online reviews.

Employee growth was determined by looking at each organizations’ website traffic and headcounts over a two-year period. 

The Forbes list includes the 500 employers that ranked the best in all three categories.