Standout Startups: Favorite 2025 Arrivals

by Christi Foist | Jul 6, 2026 | Best of Alaska Business, Magazine, Small Business

The “Best Startup” category is absent from the 2026 Best of Alaska Business awards list; it turns out that the survey results didn’t produce a winner. In order for a company to be ranked in the top three of any category, it must receive a set minimum number of nominations and clearly receive more nominations than other companies that our readers love. For 2026, the votes were spread pretty evenly among several 2025 startups. Rather than just pick the winners ourselves, we transitioned the voting results into this feature, dropping the ranks but expanding the number of businesses that we’re able to highlight. In no particular order, Alaska Business is pleased to feature new businesses that have earned customers’ favor with products, spaces, and services they can see, hold, hang, taste, or visit.

Alaska Gun Company of Wasilla fills a gap in the market for “lightweight, precision firearms,” says owner Reed Carlson. While the state has other gunsmiths, he knows of no other dedicated custom rifle manufacturer.

“We’re able to bridge the gap between your average, everyday hunter and put a much nicer firearm in their hands and also teach them how to use it,” Carlson says. Between the quality of construction and training on use of rifles, this can “overall increase their success rates in the field.”

The company’s rifles, made with carbon fiber stocks and barrels, are “guaranteed to shoot very accurately,” Carlson says. He test shoots every rifle before delivery to the customer. Rifles also get finished with an epoxy paint that’s “impervious to saltwater,” and he lets customers choose whatever color they want.

“I didn’t get into this for quantity; I got into this for quality,” Carlson says. Customers attest to that. Respondents to the Best of Alaska Business survey praise the “fantastic product,” “excellent service,” and “high-quality firearms.”

Carlson says that “staying in our narrow lane of only manufacturing custom guns” contributes to the company’s success. He has the licenses that he would need to open a gun shop, but he prefers this more focused approach. To leave his prior career with the airlines and work for himself, Carlson knew he needed to enjoy whatever he did. Making guns has been a passion since he was 18.

He runs the business from his garage, on a by-appointment basis. Learn more at alaskaguncompany.com.

“We’re able to bridge the gap between your average, everyday hunter and put a much nicer firearm in their hands and also teach them how to use it.”

—Reed Carlson, Owner, Alaska Gun Company

Lightbox Studios of Palmer serves shooters of a different sort: photographers. The studio’s owner and manager, Rachelle Ferroni, says she got the idea from her own work as a photographer and from a previous job helping to manage the now-closed MadMen Studios of Anchorage.

“A lot of people rely on natural lighting,” Ferroni says, citing the many photographers based in Palmer. She hopes Lightbox Studios shows them and their peers in surrounding areas that “your photographic journey does not have to just stop, come fall, in Alaska.”

The studio offers a 2,000-square-foot rental space with strobe lights, props, walls on wheels, soft boxes, and a mechanical backdrop system. The space also includes a client lounge and dressing rooms. Ferroni offers rentals by the hour, half day, or full day, and she plans to launch a membership option.

In addition to the space and equipment rental, Ferroni also plans to offer a range of training courses. Some will focus on lighting, especially for those more used to shooting in natural light. “Without light, you really can’t do anything with that camera,” she says. Studio space also gives photographers a year-round way to practice things like posing.

Ferroni wants other courses to serve students, whether homeschooled or in the public school system. “Our scholastic resources are… becoming more narrow and limited,” she says. “I want this to also work for anybody who is interested in photography.”

Respondents to the Best of Alaska Business survey applaud the “awesome services” and Ferroni’s “passion for what she does.” Find Lightbox Studios at 1633 S. Industrial Way, Building B #1, in Palmer or at lboxstudios.com.

Ellie Peralta documents, then dissects, preserves, and reconstructs flowers from bouquets using museum-grade materials to create flower displays she hopes will become heirlooms.

“A lot of people rely on natural lighting… [Your] photographic journey does not have to just stop, come fall, in Alaska.”

—Rachelle Ferroni, Owner, Lightbox Studios

Pressed to Remember offers a floral preservation service so popular that owner Ellie Peralta has already had to cap bouquets for some months. She discovered the service niche after her own wedding showed her “how emotional flowers can be, and how quickly they disappear afterward.”

Peralta’s wedding bouquet helped launch the business in Anchorage, after a friend saw the framed piece she made from the petals and asked to have the same thing done with her flowers. Customers can choose among different frame sizes and styles, which start at $450 for an 8-inch by 10-inch presentation. They can also customize the backing.

“I always wanted to be an artist,” says Peralta, and she approaches flower preservation as such. Each piece starts with documentation and complete disassembly of the bouquet, petal by petal, which Peralta puts in handmade flower presses made of blotting paper and cardboard. During the first few weeks, Peralta changes the blotting paper almost every day.

It usually takes a few months to completely dry the flowers. Once dry, Peralta reconstructs the bouquet with museum-grade materials and restores the flowers’ colors. After everything’s glued down, her husband frames the pieces. “I want them to feel like it’s an heirloom that can be passed on for generations,” Peralta says.

Most of Pressed to Remember’s business follows the summer wedding season, but she’s also preserved flowers from funerals, anniversary bouquets, and even some graduation leis. During the slower, colder months, Peralta focuses more on promotional expos and vendor markets, where she sells small items made from leftover flowers. View Peralta’s portfolio at pressedtoremember.com.

“We were blindsided by the receptivity in the community and how excited people were.”

—Hannah St. George, Owner, The Zen Turtle

The Zen Turtle in Fairbanks offers an antidote to the city’s long, cold winters that’s quickly gained traction with year-round fans. Owner Hannah St. George says it’s “kind of a hybrid” business, combining açaí bowls with house plants for sale.

“I wanted it to be somewhere that people could walk in… and just feel like they were somewhere else and they were transported to some place with chill vibes and happy music and greenery,” St. George says, “kind of feel like they’re on an island.”

At first she wanted to launch the business as a plant and gift shop, running it more as a hobby. But after the reality of commercial real estate prices set in, St. George and her husband decided to add açaí bowls as a source of more consistent foot traffic.

The response surprised them. They initially hoped to sell 20 bowls a day, but they served more than 4,000 in the first month alone. “We were blindsided by the receptivity in the community and how excited people were,” St. George says.

Many customers are youth who come seeking the açaí, which The Zen Turtle stocks in a kind of sorbet form that’s not canned or frozen. Early on, while they were still solidifying their sourcing, St. George’s husband had to fly to the Outside supplier whose açaí fruit they use, and he brought back about fifty tubs.

Sourcing potted plants to sell for retail merchandise has also required creativity. St. George says she got several plants from people moving out of state, such as the palm-like bird of paradise she sourced from Anchorage last fall. She drove a large van down the Railbelt and filled it up during stops at about fifteen different homes.

The Zen Turtle is located at 409 Merhar Avenue in Fairbanks.

Ivy Veriato distributes Wild About Dough small-batch goods through locally owned retailers like Natural Pantry.

Wild About Dough is a microbakery in Anchorage that specializes in handmade sourdough bread, scones, and other baked goods. Owner Ivy Veriato says she does a mix of pop-ups at places like Double Shovel Cider Co. or Alaska Botanical Garden, and the bakery has some wholesale arrangements with coffee shops and stores such as Natural Pantry.

“I’ve been baking since I was a little girl,” Veriato says, but the business took shape after her second son’s birth, when she wanted a way to “a way to give myself a little bit of serotonin… a little bit of me time.”

She started by selling her sourdough bread, and she soon expanded into other baked goods and got more creative with her recipes. Scone flavors include blueberry-lemon and jalapeño-bacon-cheddar, while her sourdough loaves range from traditional to “zesty orange with white chocolate chips.” Veriato says, “I really started to find that I had a customer base that wanted to keep me in their homes.”

Wild About Dough baked goods use local ingredients, and Veriato tries to be as organic and dye-free as possible. “I’ve just found a way to give people… healthy alternatives while also being homemade and fresh baked,” she says.

Veriato initially baked everything in her home oven, but her business eventually outgrew that. The Simply Bread Oven she recently bought uses steam to bake and can hold up to a dozen loaves or ten dozen scones at a time. “I make more every time I bake,” Veriato says. “I never thought that I would be selling out.” Every time she does, “I’m just shocked.”

Customers seem less surprised. Respondents to the Best of Alaska Business survey extol the “amazing product and huge community success” and how Veriato has “added light within the community she built.” Veriato says many customers have become friends.

Find her next popup or what’s on the menu on Wild About Dough’s Facebook page or at hotplate.com/wildaboutdoughak.