As reporters covering the Seattle-area tech community, we frequently would refer to the Startup List on the Seattle 2.0 website when looking for new startups or jogging our memories about tech companies in the Seattle region. We know many of you were avid users of the list, as well.

Starting today, we’re bringing it back, and it’s bigger and better than ever.

We’re proud to introduce the GeekWire Startup List — the largest and most up-to-date directory of startups in our region, with 500 companies in a variety of tech-oriented categories.

We hope you find it as useful as we do, and we’re asking for your help to keep the list growing as we take this project to the next big stage: In the coming weeks we’ll be rolling out a ranked index of Seattle-area startups, based on the same database, bringing back the legendary Seattle 2.0 Index.

Created in collaboration with our partners at Fresh Consulting, the Startup List builds on the legacy of the original Seattle 2.0 Startup List, which GeekWire received as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 last year.

However, it goes much further. GeekWire team members Emily Shahan and Mikey Tom spearheaded an effort to build upon and verify the Seattle 2.0 database — adding hundreds of new companies in more than two dozen categories, along with links to Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Check out the list here, including a handy feature for sorting by category if you’re researching one particular area of the tech community.

This feature is part of a growing collection of startup resources on GeekWire, following up on the earlier launch of our Service Provider Directory, another former Seattle 2.0 feature that we’ve updated and reintroduced.

Here’s where we need your help: Even with all of our research, we’re sure we haven’t found everybody. If your Seattle-area tech startup is missing from the GeekWire Startup List, please let us know through this submission form. You can also use that form to send us updated information about an existing startup on the list.

You’ll notice that the form includes extra fields, including date of founding, number of employees and annual revenue. None of this information is required for inclusion in the Startup List, but we’re gathering this data as we look ahead to the next stage in our project, a ranked index of the top startups in the Seattle region, drawing from the same comprehensive database. The more information you’re able to give us, the better that resource will be when it launches.

A big thanks to GeekWire readers and our annual sponsors Filter, Tableau, Barokas, Splunk, Gist, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and (new annual sponsor!) SEOmoz for supporting our work and making it possible for us to pursue community projects such as these. For information about sponsorships, contact GeekWire’s chief business officer, Rebecca Lovell, at rebecca@geekwire.com.

Stay tuned, we’ve got a lot more in the pipeline.