Billion-dollar companies that didn't exist 10 years ago
Billion-dollar companies that didn't exist 10 years ago
If you are a millennial or a millennial-at-heart, the daily course of your life usually involves hailing a ride on Uber or Lyft, checking your messages and posts on Facebook or Instagram, checking in on Slack to coordinate with your team at work, using a delivery app to order food or groceries, and listening to music on Spotify. You may be surprised to know that most of the companies you rely on daily are less than 10 years old.
Technology evolves fast. Moore’s Law suggests that computing power would double every two years. With the curve of technological advent closely following this, a rush has ensued to not only understand the new technology and find useful applications for it but to also profit from it. The rise of the internet and social media have created new classes of business and a new way to buy, shop, and use money.
This phenomenon has also changed the paradigm for the business world. Typically, it would take a business decades to reach the market saturation to be a billion-dollar company. Visa, for example, had a 2008 IPO that raised $19.7 billion. The company was founded in 1958. The Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, conversely, was founded in 1999. Its post-2014 IPO valuation hit $484 billion. This new economy is redefining how we look at business and is rapidly redefining global economics.
To better understand this, Stacker has compiled a list of 20 billion-dollar companies that did not exist 10 years ago. For this list, we looked at the companies’ valuations—either based on the company’s last round of funding if they are privately held or their most recent market capitalization based on stock price. We used data from Yahoo! Finance. All capitalizations are accurate as of Nov. 4, 2019. This list will include both new companies and companies that were formed after corporate reorganizations, such as mergers or spin-offs.
Keep reading to learn why ridesharing is being seen as a hot industry.
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Lyft
- Most recent valuation: $24.3 billion (3/29/2019)
Lyft is a rideshare service. The primary competitor to Uber, Lyft has had trouble justifying its post-IPO validation. Lyft has a market capitalization of $11.87 billion, as of Oct. 30. Lyft started in 2012.
Stripe
- Most recent valuation: $35 billion (9/19/2019)
Stripe is an internet payment service provider. Besides point-of-sale card readers and credit card processing, Stripe provides an interface to simplify the e-commerce payment process. Stripe was founded in 2011. Stripe’s most recent valuation is at $35 billion. As a privately held company, Stripe has no market capitalization.
Robinhood
- Most recent valuation: $7.6 billion (7/22/2019)
Robinhood Markets is a financial service platform that allows users to buy and sell exchange-traded funds and public stocks without the need to pay a commission. The company makes its money from margin lending—that is, offering the money to allow traders to make short sales or to buy stocks on credit—or from interest on its customers’ cash balances. Founded in 2013, the company has a valuation of $7.6 billion. Robinhood is a privately held company.
Coinbase
- Most recent valuation: $8 billion (10/30/2018)
Coinbase is a cryptocurrency exchange and managed wallet service. Founded in 2012, the company provides both a retail brokerage that offers non-professional traders the ability to trade fiat currency for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Bitcoin Cash and a professional platform, which offers trading pairs for an expanded slate of assets. The exchange was valued at $8 billion following its last round of funding. Coinbase is a privately held company.
Bird
- Most recent valuation: $2.5 billion (11/3/2019)
Bird is a company that provides and services shared electric scooters. Founded in 2017, the company offers a platform that allows entrepreneurs to set up their own shared mobility and has a valuation of $2.5 billion; although, this number could go up as the current funding round continues. Bird is privately held.
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Warby Parker
- Most recent valuation: $1.75 billion (3/18/2018)
Warby Parker is an online eyeglasses designer, manufacturer, and retailer. Founded in 2010, Warby Parker represents a growing number of online retailers that have managed to break Luxotica’s monopoly on the American eyeglasses market. Warby Parker has a valuation of $1.75 billion. The company is privately held.
Snap Inc.
- Most recent valuation: $33 billion (7/15/2017)
Camera company Snap Inc., owns and operates the image-sharing social media app Snapchat, Spectacles, and Bitmoji. Founded in 2011, Snap has fallen on hard times since its post-IPO valuation of $31 billion. With a current market cap of $20.6 billion, the company is hemorrhaging value and may be only a few years from being bought out or running out of money.
Pinterest
- Most recent valuation: $12.7 billion (4/17/2019)
Pinterest is a web-data sharing social network in which account holders post (or "pin") images, web pages, GIFs, and video. The holding company, founded nine months after the app went public, started in 2009. Pinterest completed its IPO with a valuation of $12.7 billion. The company is currently trading above its valuation, with a market cap of $13.57 billion.
Slack
- Most recent valuation: $23 billion (6/20/2019)
Slack Technologies is a team collaboration platform for companies that allows real-time messaging and file-sharing between co-workers anywhere in the world. Following its IPO, the company had a valuation of $23 billion. As is common with tech companies, too much IPO hype over-inflated the valuation. Slack has a current market cap of $11.32 billion. The company was founded in 2009.
Uber
- Most recent valuation: $82.4 billion (5/10/2019)
Uber is a rideshare company. The primary rival to Lyft, Uber has distinguished itself with bicycle sharing, food delivery, and ride-hailing services. Founded in 2009, Uber’s IPO was one of the worst for a tech company since Facebook. At $82.4 billion, the company priced itself at a third of what analysts had predicted a year before. Uber has a market cap today of $48.27 billion.
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Alphabet
- Most recent valuation: $881.1 billion (11/4/2019)
The holding company for Google, Alphabet was created in 2015 to offer support to Google’s subsidiaries—such as YouTube—and to create a corporate structure for new non-internet service businesses. As the world’s fifth-largest tech company by revenue, it is hard to pinpoint a valuation on the company—especially considering it has not gone through any funding rounds. Its market cap, however, as of Nov. 4 is $881.1 billion.
Kraft Heinz
- Most recent valuation: $39.8 billion (10/31/2019)
Another holding company reorganization, Kraft Heinz formed following the Heinz Family’s selling of the Heinz brand to Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital in 2013 and Kraft Foods’ 2012 spinoff from what they would rename Mondelez International. Kraft Foods would focus on Kraft’s grocery products, while Mondelez would center around snack foods and the candy business. In 2015, Kraft Foods and Heinz merged. Similar to Alphabet, Kraft Heinz has not been through a funding cycle. Its market cap, as of Oct. 31, is $39.8 billion.
Veritiv
- Most recent valuation: $2.53 billion (12/31/2018)
Veritiv is a supply chain managing firm, focusing on packaging, printing and publishing, and facilities management. The company was founded in 2014. A Fortune 500 company, Verativ was spun off from International Paper. Per its first-quarter 2019 financial statement, the company had $2.53 billion in equity as of Dec. 31, 2018. However, its current market cap is at $271.7 million.
AbbVie
- Most recent valuation: $117.74 billion (11/4/2019)
AbbVie is the spin-off and inheritor of Abbott Laboratories’ pharmaceutical development business. Abbott Laboratories now focuses on nutritional products and biomedical devices. The company was formed in 2013. AbbVie has a market cap of $117.74 billion.
Mondelez International
- Most recent valuation: $75.04 billion (11/4/2019)
The other half of Kraft, Mondelez International was formed in 2012. The split followed Kraft’s acquisition of Cadbury. The company globally produces candy, gum, snack foods, and powdered drinks. The larger of the two halves of Kraft, Mondelez has a market cap of $75.04 billion.
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Huntington Ingalls Industries
- Most recent valuation: $9.32 billion (11/4/2019)
Huntington Ingalls Industries is the nation’s largest builder of military ships. Another spin-off, the company split from Northrop Grumman in 2011. The company has a market cap of $9.32 billion.
NGL Energy Partners
- Most recent valuation: $1.43 billion (11/4/2019)
NGL Energy Partners is a firm that works with energy products (crude oil, renewables, and other) all along the work chain from blending and storing to transporting. The company was founded in 2010 and has a market cap of $1.43 billion.
Instacart
- Most recent valuation: $7.6 billion (11/18/018)
Instacart is a grocery delivery service. Shoppers can use an app to shop from home and to receive groceries via contracted drivers the same day, typically, within an hour. Founded in 2012, the company has a valuation based on its most recent round of funding of $7.6 billion. Instacart is a privately held company.
Walgreens Boots Alliance
- Most recent valuation: $52.16 billion (2019)
In 2014, American drugstore giant Walgreens purchased UK-based Alliance Boots, creating a new company. The company, Walgreens Boots Alliance, now internationally sells retail and wholesale pharmaceuticals. The company has a market cap of $52.16 billion.
Fox Corporation
- Most recent valuation: $19.83 billion (2019)
Following Disney’s 2019 acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s motion picture, cable television, and broadcast satellite divisions, the Fox television network (which could not be purchased because Disney already owns ABC), the broadcast stations, Fox Sports, and Fox News remained. These assets were repackaged as Fox Corporation, which has a market cap of $19.83 billion.
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