SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Picarro, the world's leading provider of instruments for measurements of air, water, soil and food, announced that the company had received the Red Herring Global 100 award in recognition of the leading private companies from North America, Europe, and Asia.

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Red Herring's Global 100 list is a mark of distinction for identifying promising companies and entrepreneurs. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Google, Skype, Baidu, Salesforce.com, YouTube, eBay and many others would change the way we live and work. 

"Choosing the best out of the previous two years was by no means a small feat," said Alex Vieux, Chairman of Red Herring. "After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed down our list from 1,100 potential companies to 100 winners.  It was an extremely difficult process.  Picarro should be extremely proud of its achievement. The competition for the Top 100 was fierce. The Top 100 Global are truly the best of the best."

Red Herring's editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track record and standing of startups relative to their sector peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the "buzz" and make the list an invaluable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the greatest business opportunities from around the world.

Picarro's innovative technologies for measuring carbon, water and nitrogen cycles are radically expanding the boundaries of scientific research and democratizing the formerly arcane and highly complex field of high-precision environmental measurements. Scientists use Picarro systems to measure critical environmental indicators such as rainfall patterns, ambient greenhouse gas concentrations, forest health, and animal migrations. Industrial uses include revolutionary detection capabilities for natural gas leaks in subterranean pipelines, fine-grained targeting of natural gas exploration efforts, and safeguarding the food supply chain by analyzing the isotopic content of food products to verify point of origin.

"This award is further recognition of the incredible feats achieved by our talented team of scientists and engineers who are building the tools that will empower smart decisions about managing and protecting our air, food, water and soil," says Picarro CEO Michael Woelk. "We make our systems incredibly precise, robust enough to operate anywhere on Earth, and incredibly simple to use. We believe in a future where anyone with an analyzer regardless of expertise, should be able to take and put to use world-class measurements."

Picarro instruments are manufactured at the company's Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters and are used by thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians in 54 countries and on all seven continents. Customers include leading research institutions (Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University, the LSCE, Beijing University), leading government agencies (the China Meteorological Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the environmental protection agencies of the U.S., Germany, Canada, Ireland and Switzerland) and multi-national corporations (Eli Lilly, Waste Management Inc., Rio Tinto Alcan. Investors include Benchmark Capital, Greylock Partners, and DAG Ventures.

Contact: Sarvesh Jagannivas, Vice President of Marketing: [email protected] / 408-962-3923

SOURCE Picarro, Inc.