Startup investing has several pros and cons. From the illiquidity and lack of a well-proven business model to the total loss of the capital invested, the risks are sky-high. But investing in potential leader companies in their sector and industry at an early low price and actively shaping the future of their business top the cons. You can also diversify your portfolio no matter its size by selecting startups to invest in.

Perhaps the question that is the most challenging to answer is how do you assign value and how do you feel about supporting up-and-coming disrupters in the economy? It is hard to quantify these factors. Nevertheless, in this article, you can find seven promising ideas for startup investing on the equity crowdfunding platform StartEngine. These seven startups are among the most funded companies, as there is already a demand for them.

Here are 7 of the best startups on StartEngine now:

• Whooshh Innovations
• Saebo
• Wilderwise
• Whimstay
• WeatherFlow-Tempest
• Blue Sky Energy
• StartEngine Real Estate REIT

Further due diligence is suggested and remember that risk tolerance should be always within your range of investment philosophy criteria.

Startups to Invest In: Whooshh Innovations

Whooshh Innovations has the ambitious goal to save fish, clean water and help save the planet by providing renewable energy. Climate change poses a big problem to annual fish migration and species such as salmon, eel lamprey and shad have trouble migrating to survive due to factors such as habitat loss and invasive species.

Whooshh Innovations is providing fish passage solutions using hydropower with a focus on enabling selective fish passage, restoring natural habitats and limiting CO2 emissions. The whole process involves several steps, such as fish passage, invasive species removal, fish processing, scanning and data and fish handling and aquaculture.

The business opportunity is large with customers including private and public dam owners, aquaculture producers and even federal and state agencies. The business model has already delivered in the year 2020 $5.6 million in revenue, with an EBIDTA of $2.92 million and a gross margin reported to be over 90%.

What is especially interesting are the five ways Whooshh Innovations can generate revenue, from sales, services, passage as a service, subscriptions and grant/study as well. With plans to become a global leader in the fish passage over the next the next 3 to 5 years, you can invest in Whooshh Innovations with a minimum investment of $300.00.

Saebo

Statistics say every 2.1 seconds, someone suffers a stroke incident. At the same time, a stroke is the number one cause responsible for long-term disability. Stroke rehabilitation takes a lot of time and has several flaws such as equipment that is expensive, less effective and complicated to use at home.

Saebo provides an alternative to expensive and ineffective stroke rehabilitation equipment, providing both safe and affordable products aimed at maximizing the neurological recovery of each patient. Saebo sells FDA-approved devices that are affordable and easy to use targeting effectiveness supported by both science and clinical research.

Notably, Saebo places a lot of importance on the education of both patients and clinicians globally about the latest developments related to its products. Saebo Academy, approved by the American Occupational Therapy Association, already has more than 20,000 therapists participating in educating themselves about the latest news in stroke rehabilitation treatment.

The business model for Saebo has generated more than $44 million in net revenue to date and is based on B2B and D2C sales channels both domestically but also at an international level through providers and medical care distributors.

The minimum investment in Saebo  is $248.

Wilderwise

Wilderwise could be the perfect solution to stay 100% safe during the pandemic. How? By taking your home on the move and finding a nice location in the country with privacy, safety and comfort.

“Wilderwise designs and builds lightweight, sustainable, modular, two-story tiny houses on wheels.” Tiny houses have many problems: are hard to build, not easy to transport and subject to unforeseen legal issues. By contrast, the tiny houses by Wilderwise are comfortable, adaptable and easy to transport. Everything is taken care of before any home is sold to be fully in compliance with all federal and local regulations to avoid any unpleasant situations.

These houses are made of a combination of materials such as steel, plastic and aluminum that reduce their weight by more than 50% and as expected are resistant to environmental conditions such as rot, mold and even bugs. On top of that, they are energy-efficient and eco-friendly.

Wilderwise estimates that the tiny house industry will grow at a CAGR rate of about 7%, in the next years, reaching the figure of $5.8 billion over 4 years.

The minimum investment in Wilderwise  is $250.00.

Whimstay

A serious drawback for the vacation rental industry and people deciding to travel at the last minute without planning is the huge loss of income from empty vacation rentals and those that are available being too expensive. Luckily Whimstay solves these problems providing a plethora of last-minute stays that are exactly what travelers want: affordable.

Whimstay is an exclusive last-minute distribution partner to Vacasa and Turnkey, considered to be two of the largest property management companies in North America. The marketplace by Whimstay is for travelers wanting lower fees, finding last-minute deals at an affordable price that is very hard to beat, up to 60% off.

Whimstay is a competitor to vacation-rental platforms and focuses on the customer experience having a unique feature. All property managers and guests are entitled to up to a $1.3M guarantee on accidental damage.

The vacation rental market is experiencing high growth that is expected to last and was an $87 billion global market opportunity in 2020. On top of that, it is expected to witness a 16.6% CAGR over the next years.

Whimstay already has traction, with more than 100,000 app downloads, 107,000 property listings and exclusive deals with more than 580 property management companies.

The minimum investment in Whimstay’s vacation rental platform is $249.78.

WeatherFlow-Tempest

Weather is highly unpredictable with a costly negative impact. Each year severe weather conditions kill more than 60,000 people and cost the global economy more than 1 trillion dollars. Climate change makes it hard to predict and control weather conditions but planning for them is possible.

WeatherFlow-Tempest is a disruptor to the $7 billion weather data and decision support market. It is a weather technology company that developed its patented Nearcast Technology™ based on four layers.

These layers are better hardware, better observational data, better modeling and better decision support. A massive amount of data is gathered from all available sources in the Tempest systems, growing to become the largest weather observing network globally. With the use of AI-based computer modeling technology, more accurate local weather information is provided as real-time data.

The traction for WeatherFlow-Tempest is present with more than 40,000 paying customers and millions of users. The weather technology company reported revenues of $2.9 million in 2019 and about $6.5 million in 2020.

Revenue is generated from three categories, Tempest Hardware system, Personal Apps that are a source of recurring annual subscriptions and WeatherFlow Pro, a business platform.

The minimum investment in WeatherFlow-Tempest is $325.00.

Blue Sky Energy

Blue Sky Energy is a company about sustainable clean energy storage. The company aims to provide safe energy solutions, reliable and efficient that simply do not contribute to climate change. It plans to achieve those wide-ranging goals through two products, the GreenRock Saltwater battery and Vigos all-weather battery.

These products are safe, non-flammable, non-explosive and all about safe battery technology, using renewable energy sources to minimize environmental impact. Blue Sky Energy provides battery storage systems that are scalable to meet any consumer power needs. They utilize a system consisting of photovoltaic modules and inverters, battery inverters to store solar energy and power storage.

It is expected that the Battery Energy Storage System market will reach $6.9 billion by 2025. These battery storage systems by Blue Sky Energy are sold for a price between $15K to $100K and generated revenue in 2020 of $370K.

To fight climate change Blue Sky Energy is focusing on the growing renewable energy sector investing in the scalability of its projects that have endless possibilities.

The minimum investment in Blue Sky Energy  is $308.00.

StartEngine Real Estate REIT

StartEngine Real Estate REIT is an opportunity to diversify your portfolio by investing in real estate. In the past, only investors with large amounts of capital could participate in real estate investing. With the launch of many real estate REITs, this has changed.

What are some key features of the StartEngine Real Estate REIT? For start, investors will receive 6% preferred returns annually on their investment. After this 6% is distributed if there are additional funds generated then they will be equally split to investors and fund managers. This means that investors will be entitled to receive recurring monthly dividends directly to their StartEngine accounts.

The assets of StartEngine Real Estate will be managed by highly experienced real estate veteran Michael Chesser. With REITs, improved liquidity solves problems related to investing directly in the real estate market. StartEngine Real Estate is signed to trade on StartEngine’s secondary market meaning that investors can have access to improved liquidity and will be able to trade their shares when they need or want to, but only after the close of this offering.

The Start Engine Real Estate REIT operates on four principles. Raise cash, acquire properties, then improve these properties to generate income and finally realize ongoing income for its investors.

The minimum investment in StartEngine Real Estate REIT is $500.00.

On the date of publication, Stavros Georgiadis, CFA  did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

Stavros Georgiadis is a CFA charter holder, an Equity Research Analyst, and an Economist. He focuses on U.S. stocks and has his own stock market blog at thestockmarketontheinternet.com/. He has written in the past various articles for other publications and can be reached on Twitter and on LinkedIn.