Often young but aggressive, the winner and finalists for the 2018 software company of the year in the Top Company awards, have each carved out unique niches in the space. In fact, one – a finalist – enjoyed its IPO within the last year, while it goes without saying our winner, has gobbled up competition and racked up accomplishments as well. Check it out:

WINNER

APTO

DENVER

Nearly 10,000 commercial real estate brokers use Apto’s software for managing customer relationships, properties, listings and deals. The software is optimized to meet brokers’ needs and can be customized to brokerage workflows and business requirements.

“We believe that the most unique aspect of our product is the extent to which we incorporate our customers’ needs and feedback directly into the software we build,” Apto CEO Angela Tucci says. “This approach to product development has been a key differentiator for Apto since its inception. Our product team has spent hundreds of hours interviewing brokers; we host brokers at our office regularly for feedback sessions, and we even have a real-time customer suggestion mechanism built right into our product.”Apto founder Tanner McGraw started the company because he was unhappy with the technology available to him as a commercial real estate broker. Apto was built on a deep understanding of brokers’ challenges and has been committed to listening to customer input ever since.

“One of the most pivotal points in Apto’s evolution came last year when we began including the entire company in our quarterly business-planning process,” Tucci says. “This involved participation by every single employee at Apto in brainstorming meetings and breakout sessions to define the biggest challenges facing the company and to devise cross-functional projects to help us solve them in creative and effective ways.”

Tucci says the shared experience helped align employees around common goals, enabled them to feel a greater sense of ownership and accountability and unleashed unexpected ideas for moving the company forward.

FINALISTS

XERO

DENVER

Xero is a cloud-based accounting platform designed to meet the needs of accountants, bookkeepers and their small-business clients. The platform integrates with banks, government and business management tools enabling small-business owners to collaborate with their key advisers. Xero software provides an accurate and complete view of a small business’ financial standing to help them thrive in a competitive market. Since 2014, the number of Xero subscribers has grown from 284,000 to 1.4 million in more than 180 countries today. The company’s accolades include Best Accounting Software for Mac from Business News Daily; Fastest Accounting Innovator from PC Magazine; and Top-rated Accounting and Budgeting Software from TrustRadius.

SENDGRID

DENVER

SendGrid is behind the scenes of many digital communications people receive daily. The company powers reservation confirmations from AirBnB, messages sent between hosts and their guests and the password reset or artist promotion from Spotify. Since its inception nine years ago, SendGrid has processed more than 1 trillion emails and has processed more than 40 billion emails each month for internet and mobile-based customers, as well as more traditional enterprises. The company went through a successful IPO last November, raising $131 million during its first day on the market. It closed on a follow-on public stock offering on April 10 in which the company issued 600,000 new shares, with another 6.9 million shares sold by pre-IPO investors and members of management.