NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF.- At the annual Red Herring award ceremony – this year in Newport Beach – LiveAuctioneers.com was named a 2016 Red Herring Top 100 North America award winner. Red Herring is a respected digital-media company focused on innovation and cutting-edge technology. The annual awards event honors private companies that excel within their sectors of the economy.

As a Top 100 winner, LiveAuctioneers.com is recognized as being among the very best of 25 million small businesses in the US and Canada that would be eligible to compete for the award. Since 1996, Red Herring has identified many up-and-coming superstars. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, Palo Alto Networks and eBay would change the way we live and work.

LiveAuctioneers.com is the leading marketplace for curated merchandise. Accepting the 2016 award on behalf of LiveAuctioneers.com, VP Product and Marketing Phil Michaelson related the Manhattan-based company’s 14-year history and shared details of the company’s rapid growth. “In an industry crowded by household brands like eBay, Etsy and Alibaba, our competitive advantage has been building unique levels of trust amongst collectors, dealers and auction houses, often at the expense of our own short-term economic interests,” Michaelson said. As an example of the company’s corporate integrity, LiveAuctioneers.com recently partnered with the U.S. Wildlife Trafficking Alliance to build standards surrounding the sale of ivory and is in the process of banning ivory from its own platform.

The Red Herring Top 100 North America award is a distinction many companies pursue but comparatively few attain. Since the awards were first announced in 1996, the field of competitors has become increasingly impressive with each passing year.

“In 2016, selecting the top achievers was extremely difficult,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. “The variety, depth, disruption and traction we saw from the early stage companies to those with significant scale made it one of the toughest vintages to judge. The North America winners are representative of the amazing ecosystem that never ceases to astound, with new and experienced entrepreneurs continuing to push the barriers of innovation. As one of the winners, LiveAuctioneers should be proud of its accomplishment under such strong competition.”

Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated finalists on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technological innovation and intellectual property, DNA of the founders, business model, customer footprint, 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, thus allowing Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list a relevant instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising, cutting-edge business models in North America.