Meet the 2015 CNBC Disruptor 50 companies

In the third annual Disruptor 50 list, CNBC features private companies in 16 industries—from aerospace to financial services to cybersecurity to retail—whose innovations are revolutionizing the business landscape. These forward-thinking upstarts have identified unexploited niches in the marketplace that have the potential to become billion-dollar businesses, and they rushed to fill them. In the process, they are creating new ecosystems for their products and services. Unseating corporate giants is no easy feat. (Tweet this.) But we ranked those venture capital–backed companies doing the best job. Already it's hard to think of the world without them. Read more about the list ranking and the methodology.

1	Moderna Therapeutics	Reprogramming cells to fight disease.
2	SpaceX	Elon Musk's mission to Mars.
3	Bloom Energy	Live off the grid; keep the lights on.
4	Uber	A $50 billion on-demand ride.
5	Airbnb	The newest idea in room service: Renting one.
6	Dropbox	Saving a billion files every day.
7	Palantir Tech	Helped find Bin Laden. Don't like to talk about it.
8	TransferWise	Getting bankers out of the forex biz.
9	Slack	Giving "slacker" a whole new meaning.
10	Warby Parker	Taking on the Luxottica eyewear machine.
11	Houzz	If you rebuild it ...
12	LISNR	Using sound to make waves in the app world.
13	DocuSign	Read their lips: No new faxes.
14	SurveyMonkey	Questions for everyone.
15	Quirky	Crowdsourcing an idea for basement tinkerers.
16	Pure Storage	Predicting a flash flood of data.
17	Oscar	Health insurance for the Obamacare era.
18	Personal Capital	A 360-degree view of your finances.
19	Blippar	An augmented reality check for your smartphone.
20	GitHub	Cracking the code on collaboration.
21	Synack	The white-hat army.
22	GENBAND	Disrupting telecom by helping the disrupted.
23	Motif Investing	Building theme-based portfolios online.
24	Hampton Creek	The egg comes first; no chicken necessary.
25	SoFi	Trying to ease the student-debt crisis.
26	ZenPayroll	Changing the way we get paid.
27	MongoDB	Solving humongous data problems.
28	Rent the Runway	Nice dress. Can I borrow it?
29	Intarcia Therapeutics	A better way to treat diabetes.
30	HackerRank	Helping nerds get hired.
31	Coinbase	The closest thing bitcoin has to a central bank.
32	SugarCRM	Building a better Salesforce.
33	Klarna	No cart left behind.
34	Wealthfront	Silicon Valley’s plan to oust wealth managers.
35	Pinterest	The world's bulletin board.
36	Betterment	Robo-advising for the masses.
37	Dollar Shave Club	Disrupting the cutting edge.
38	Optoro	On a mission to turn trash into treasure.
39	Hearsay Social	Teaching Wall Street to tweet.
40	Square	Saying good-bye to "cash only."
41	Twilio	A stealth giant tapping into telecom’s mobile moment.
42	Impossible Foods	Introducing the meatless, cheeseless cheeseburger.
43	Birchbox	Free samples, for a price.
44	Nutanix	Breaking companies out of their IT handcuffs.
45	DraftKings	Fantasy sports without the real-life commitment.
46	Narrative Science	Here come the robo-writers.
47	Spotify	The most controversial act in music.
48	Qubole	Big-data turnkey service with a smile.
49	Nextdoor	A social network for neighborhoods.
50	Snapchat	The app for selfie photo lovers.