{"id":67500,"date":"2016-07-12T15:50:36","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T19:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/?p=67500"},"modified":"2016-07-12T14:41:48","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T18:41:48","slug":"17-billion-dollar-startups-that-didnt-exist-5-years-ago-05-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/17-billion-dollar-startups-that-didnt-exist-5-years-ago-05-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"17 billion-dollar startups that didn’t exist 5 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"billion<\/p>\n

We live in the golden age of starting your own company and growing it into a multi-billion dollar juggernaut. Forty years ago the resources, money and talent to start a new company was greatly lacking which grew the barrier to entry for any young entrepreneur to start one.<\/p>\n

Of course, we saw a handful of exceptions like Apple, Microsoft and Oracle who went on to eventually grow their companies into billion dollar tech giants. But even those companies took years before they reached the billion dollar mark.<\/p>\n

Over the years, we saw innovation sweep through the consumer market making it more accessible to find information, acquire talent, communicate with teams and build businesses.<\/p>\n

With all of these advancements, it is easier than ever to build\u00a0new business ideas, acquire capital and drive a successful startup.<\/p>\n

With that said, we have seen the number of billion dollar business increase over the last few years. These are businesses that have not even been around for very long as well!<\/p>\n

Here are 17 billion-dollar startups that didn’t exist 5 years ago.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gusto: $1.07 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Gusto\"<\/p>\n

Gusto is a cloud-based payroll and benefits system which was founded in November 2011, but you might know it from it formerly as, ZenPayroll. Gusto does it all from filing all local, state, and federal payroll taxes to sending employee paystubs and Q-2s, to integrating benefits and workers\u2019 comp to help manage everything in one place. Gusto has you covered.<\/p>\n

Uptake Technologies: $1.10 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Uptake\"<\/p>\n

In 2014, former Groupon founder Brad Keywell started a secretive Chicago-based data-analytics startup. Uptake helps companies understand and act on their data. They are a singular platform that defines data-driven insight in major global industries. The Uptake platform helps companies avoid failures within operations, work more efficiently and discover new value.<\/p>\n

Udacity: $1.10 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Udacity\"<\/p>\n

In February 2012, Udacity launded in order to provide free classes online. Since then, it has teamed up with Georgia Tech to offer a master\u2019s program through the online educational portal. Udacity\u2019s mission is to bring accessible, affordable, engaging and highly effective higher education to the world.<\/p>\n

Infinidat: $1.2 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Infinidat\"<\/p>\n

Infinidat was founded in 2011 by Moshe Yanai and focuced on solving the problems storage buyers face when they are forced to choose between cost, capacity, functionality, reliability and performance. As a secretive young data-storage company, Infinidat has raised more than $230 million in venture capital.<\/p>\n

Jet: $1.4 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Jet\"<\/p>\n

Jet was founded in 2014 and was open to the public in November 2015. It is an e-commerce site dedicated to making shopping more transparent and more efficient. Their pricing algorithm is designed to help retail partners find ways to reduce inefficiencies so they can work collaboratively, not competitively.<\/p>\n

The Honest Company $1.69 billion<\/h2>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Co-founded by actress, Jessica Alba, The Honest Company has various lines of perfect products for babies and homes. The items sold are safe, eco-friendly, non-toxic, convenient and affordable. Their mission is to re-define the \u201cfamily brand and build safer, healthier families.<\/p>\n

Human Longevity: $1.89 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Human<\/p>\n

Founded in 2013, Human Longevity is a San Diego-based company that is working on building the largest comprehensive database of human genomic date to prolong healthy human life. This company harnessed the power of human genomics, informatics, next generation sequencing technologies, and stem cell advances into one.<\/p>\n

Instacart: $2 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Instacart\"<\/p>\n

Instacart is an online service used to order fresh groceries. After choosing your items from your favorite stores, you schedule a delivery time and they arrive at your door. In 2012, Instacart made a deal with Whole Foods by signing a five-year delivery partnership to make Instacart the exclusive delivery partner for Whole Foods\u2019 perishable business.<\/p>\n

Blue Apron: $2 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Blue<\/p>\n

Blue Apron is a New York-baded meal-kit delivery service that was founded in 2012. Their mission is to develop a more sustainable food system by sustainable fishing, responsible farming and reducing food waste. They set high standards for their ingredients, all of which are farm-sourced produce, ethically-raised animals and quality ingredients.<\/p>\n

Avant: $2 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Avant\"<\/p>\n

Founded in 2012, and formerly known as AvantCredit, Avant is a private Chicago-based company in the financial technology industry. Avant is one of the many online lending platform startups that is trying to overturn the consumer-loan market by approving loans faster than banks.<\/p>\n

DraftKings: $2 billion<\/h2>\n

\"DraftKings\"<\/p>\n

Founded in 2011, DraftKings is a Boston-based daily fantasy sports contest provider. The company allows users to enter daily and weekly fantasy sports-related contest and win money based on individual player and team performances in the MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA and PGA. During this past year due to increasing regulatory scrutiny, DraftKing had to shut down in New York.<\/p>\n

Oscar: $2.7 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Oscar\"<\/p>\n

Founded in 2012, Oscar is a New York-based company that has spent the past four years trying to revolutionize health insurance through technology, data and design.<\/p>\n

Oscar gives better plans that are easy to understand and provide comprehensive coverage, access to 24\/7 doctors and primary doctor visits for free, and you can manage your prescriptions and earn rewards for staying active online.<\/p>\n

Pivotal Software: $2.75 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Pivotal\"<\/p>\n

Pivotal Software, Inc. is a software and services company based in San Francisco, California. Pivotal’s companies include Pivotal Labs, Pivotal Cloud Foundry, Pivotal Big Data Suite and Pivotal Data Science. After launching in April of 2013, Pivotal\u2019s enterprise platform has attracted close to $760 million in venture capital.<\/p>\n

Social Finance (SoFi): $3.58 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Social<\/p>\n

SoFi was founded in September 2011 from students at Stanford who wanted to make getting low fix-rate loans easier for deserving students. It is an organization seeking new approaches to entrenched social problems. SoFi has built a team up of 70 individuals with substantial expertise in finance, strategy consultancy, public and the social sector.<\/p>\n

Slack: $3.8 billion<\/h2>\n

\"slack\"<\/p>\n

Slack was originally founded as Tiny Speck, a gaming company, in 2009. After the game flopped, founder Stewart Butterfiled realized that the messaging app they had built internally could be a big business. Slack brings all your communication together in one place. It’s real-time messaging, archiving and search for modern teams.<\/p>\n

Zenefits: $4.5 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Zenefits\"<\/p>\n

Zenefits is free online HR Software that gives your team a single place to manage all your human resource needs such as payroll, benefits and compliance. Founded in 2012, Zenefits has raised almost $600 million in venture capital, bringing the value to $4.5 billion. Despite the companies rapid increase, they have recently hit a bump in the road with a CEO change, investigations into business practices and layoffs.<\/p>\n

Snapchat: $16 billion<\/h2>\n

\"Snapchat\"<\/p>\n

Spanchat lets you easily talk with friends, view Live Stories from around the world, and explore news in Discover. Originally founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegal, a product design student at Standford University, Snapchat evolved into a mix of private messaging and public content, including brand networks, publications, and live events such as sports and music.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We live in the golden age of starting your own company and growing it into a multi-billion dollar juggernaut. Forty years ago the resources, money and talent to start a new company was greatly lacking which grew the barrier to entry for any young entrepreneur to start one. Of course, we saw a handful of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":67519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,26,8281,7372],"tags":[7382,10213],"class_list":{"0":"post-67500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"category-finance","9":"category-markets","10":"category-technology","11":"tag-startups-2","12":"tag-unicorns"},"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67500"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67532,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67500\/revisions\/67532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businesspundit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}