Blockstream is a private, for profit, blockchain technology company, that has played a key role in helping to develop, and fund, many of the key features of the Bitcoin Core platform. Blockstream is focused on developing bitcoin applications and has raised significant funding from several large investment funds. The company also employs several developers that are very influential within the Bitcoin Core development project. This, as well as being of Bitcoin's largest donors, has led to some criticism about conflicts of interest.
Blockstream is developing a number of Bitcoin applications that are intended to encourage adoption and improve transaction times on the bitcoin network. Their primary focus is on Sidechains, which are are extensions to existing blockchains that improve their functionality. The company is also working closely with industry leaders to create the Bitcoin Lightning system that will support higher trading volume and faster transactions on the bitcoin network. Blockstream is also developing a data feed, satellite network, and other applications that they hope will make blockchain more accessible.

Emercoin is a blockchain-based development platform. It has developed a range of easy-to-use dSDKs (Decentralized Software Development Kits) that can be used to more easily build DApps. This set of software development tools allow the creation of blockchain-based software and services.
Emercoin's dSDKs have been implemented in several innovative DApps and provide developers with solutions for a variety of functionalities. Some of the dSDK's that Emercoin offers are specifically geared for decentralized DNS, SSH, SSL, and DPO solutions.
Emercoin has a hybrid consensus mechanism that combines elements of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) with a Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm that is merge-mined with Bitcoin. The network is powered by the EMC coin.

Nxt is a blockchain platform developed by Jelurida, which is also developing the Ardor blockchain. Nxt's goal is to improve upon existing blockchain platforms with a modular toolset that enables users to create their own digital assets that can be listed on decentralized marketplaces. Nxt also features community driven voting mechanisms and has an architecture that separates the blockchain into parent and child blockchains.
The network is powered by the NXT token and has a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.