Udacity
Founded: 2011
Valuation: $1 billion
Education startup Udacity wants to help you "be in demand." Sebastian Thrun, also known for launching Google's secretive hardware lab Google X, founded the company in 2011 with the lofty goal of democratizing education.
The idea is that anyone who completes one of udacity's nine nanodegrees — which include front-end web developer, Android developer, and data analyst — will be perfectly primed to get a job, since big companies actually helped design the curriculum. Over 10,000 students from 168 countries have enrolled in the nanodegree program, and in November the company raised a $105 million Series D round to continue scaling that growth.
Vox Media
Founded: 2011
Valuation: $1 billion
Vox Media, the media company that owns The Verge, Curbed, SB Nation, Vox.com, and Eater, added another site to its arsenal in June: 18-month-old Re/code, a tech-news publication founded by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher in 2014, which is predicted to bring in $12 million this year, Business Insider reported at the time of the acquisition.
In addition to purchasing Re/code, Vox Media received a $200 million investment from NBCUniversal in August. The investment is reportedly part of a push by NBC to connect with Millennial audiences, Re/code reported at the time, but it’s a good sign for Vox Media any way you slice it.
Uptake
Founded: 2014
Valuation: $1.1 billion
Cofounded by Groupon founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky, Uptake is a billion-dollar Internet of Things startup. The company provides analytics for major industries, with the eventual goal of helping industries like gas and construction cut costs. One of the company's biggest partnerships is with Caterpillar Inc.
“Eliminating unplanned downtime is the aspiration of the industrial Internet,” Keywell, uptake's CEO, told Fortune earlier this year. “The benefit is not tens of millions of dollars, it’s hundreds of millions of dollars of increased revenue and profitability.” The Chicago-based startup has more than 300 employees.
DraftKings
Founded: 2011
Valuation: $1.2 billion
DraftKings is a $1.2 billion daily-fantasy-sports site that lets its users bet real money on their teams. You may have seen its ubiquitous TV advertisements telling you about how some of its members have cashed out crazy sums of money using DraftKings.
The startup is also mired in controversy: Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that a DraftKings employee admitted to "inadvertently releasing data before the start of the third week of N.F.L. games." That same week, the employee won $350,000 at FanDuel, DraftKings' biggest competitor in the daily-fantasy-sports business.
DraftKings, Boston-based startup, has raised $375 million in venture capital funding from investors like MLB's venture arm, Melo7 Tech partners, the NHL, and Redpoint Ventures.
Jet
Founded: 2014
Valuation: $1.4 billion
E-commerce startup Jet wants to be the next Amazon. The company raised $220 million through three rounds of funding before it even launched. It also hit over $1 million in sales on its first day when it launched in July, setting the tone for a successful year. It was the No. 4 marketplace in terms of sales just a month after launching, beating out Sears and Best Buy.
The company promises to offer prices up to 15% lower than anywhere else on the web, and developed an exclusive technology that adjusts prices in real time based on what users put in their carts.
In October, Jet changed its business model and dropped its $50 membership fee it once proposed would be its sole source of profit. Lore previously said Jet doesn't plan to reach scale or profitability until 2020, when the company projects to have 15 million paying customers and $20 billion in sales.
Oscar
Founded: 2013
Valuation: $1.7 billion
In April, health-insurance company Oscar raised $145 million, giving it a $1.5 billion valuation. Then in September, Oscar closed another $32.5 million round of venture funding led by Google Capital, pushing its valuation up to $1.75 billion. With these investments, Oscar joins the ranks of buzzy startups known as unicorns, with valuations over $1 billion.
Oscar wants to transform the healthcare industry by creating a better user experience when it comes to health insurance. It launched publicly in 2013 and had more than 40,000 customers across New York and New Jersey as of April, with plans to launch in Texas and California.
Honest Company
Founded: 2011
Valuation: $1.7 billion
Jessica Alba, an actress, mother, and entrepreneur, cofounded The Honest Company because she couldn't find any high-quality eco-friendly baby products when she was a new mom.
"I wanted clean, safe, effective products that were affordable and beautifully designed and I couldn't find that in the marketplace ... There wasn't really a family brand that spoke to me as a young mom," Alba said on Jimmy Fallon this past January.
The company makes and sells non-toxic diapers, cleaning products, prenatal supplements, and cribs. It's also a certified B Corporation. The Honest Company has raised $220 million in funding and has a valuation of $1.7 billion.
Avant
Founded: 2012
Valuation: $2 billion
Online lending startup Avant is one of two Chicago-based "unicorn" startups founded within the past five years. Avant targets subprime borrowers — people with lower credit scores. Its average borrower's credit score is 650, and their borrowers' average income is between $40,000 and $100,000.
This year, the company is expected to generate $275 million in revenue. Last year, it generated $75 million.
Blue Apron
Founded: 2012
Valuation: $2 billion
Blue Apron, a company that makes cooking easy by delivering perfectly proportioned ingredients and recipes straight to your door, is a godsend for lazy cooks.
Though it’s only been around since 2012, Blue Apron is already selling more than 3 million meals each month, CEO Matt Salzberg told Business Insider earlier this year. The startup has more than tripled in size since January, and reports hundreds of thousands of customers. Blue Apron’s potential is vast: The service appeals to millennials who want to expand their repertoire in the kitchen as much as busy moms straining for creativity and simplicity in their weeknight meals.
Instacart
Founded: 2012
Valuation: $2 billion
Often dubbed "Uber for groceries," Instacart eliminates the need to ever set food in a grocery store. For $3.99 plus your bill, the service will deliver your full load of groceries, hand-picked by a personal shopper at local stores like Whole Foods and Costco.
The startup notably brought in a $220 million round of funding last December, following a $44 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz in June. And it's still on the rise: Instacart is in 18 states and Washington DC, and plans to continue growing in those places while expanding to others.
Lyft
Founded: 2012
Valuation: $2.5 billion
Green's Lyft is a laid-back, fist-bumping, pink-mustachioed alternative to Uber. Lyft launched three years ago in San Francisco and had expanded to more than 60 cities across the US. Before there was Lyft, Green was the cofounder and CEO of the ride-sharing community Zimride.
Lyft has raised an eye-popping $1.01 billion in funding from Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Floodgate, AFSquare, and more, at a valuation of $2.5 billion. To expand its footprint globally, the company has a number of strategic partnerships with ride-hailing companies like China's Didi Kuaidi, Singapore's GrabTaxi, and India's Ola.
Wish
Founded: 2011
Valuation: $3 billion
Former Yahoo, Google, and Facebook engineers, led by Peter Szulczewski, created Wish, the leading mobile commerce platform in North America and Europe. Alibaba and Amazon havereportedly had acquisition talks with Wish in the past year.
"We want to be Google AdWords for the retailer," Szulczewski said. Wish has been described as the e-commerce company Fab was supposed to be. It sells cheap but stylish products by optimizing social channels like Facebook. Its layout resembles Pinterest, but on Wish everything is for sale, and you'll be hard-pressed to find an item that costs more than $25.
The company has reportedly raised close to $600 million and been valued at $3 billion or more by investors. But it hasn't gotten much press because CEO Peter Szulczewski doesn't want or need any. When we first reached out to Szulczewski, in December 2014, he wrote that he was "humbled and a bit surprised" to find himself on Business Insider's radar, since he and the company "try to keep a very low profile."
Social Finance
Founded: 2011
Valuation: $4 billion
Lending company Social Finance (often known as SoFi) raised $1 billion in September, helping establish CEO Mike Cagney's endeavor as one of the best-funded startups in Silicon Valley. The fundraising was the biggest financing round by any company in the fintech industry.
SoFi is up against other online lenders and brick-and-mortar banks alike. So far this year, the startup has lined up more than $4 billion in loans. That accounts for roughly 80% of its $5 billion in loans issued since its launch in fall 2011. Cagney believes there's a lot more room for its origination platform to grow.
Zenefits
Founded: 2013
Valuation: $4.5 billion
Zenefits, a startup aimed at making administrative tasks such as payroll and benefits easier, is shaping up to be one of the fastest-growing cloud companies ever, in revenue and number of users.
In May, Zenefits raised $500 million in Series C funding, bringing the company’s valuation up to $4.5 billion. Only two years old, Zenefits employs 1,000 people and has 10,000 customers.
Snapchat
Founded: 2011
Valuation: $16 billion
Evan Spiegel dropped out of Stanford University just a couple credits shy of a degree to create Snapchat, the multimedia mobile messaging app.
Snapchat has received $1.19 billion in funding after 8 rounds from investors including Alibaba, Kleiner Perkins, Coatue Management, IVP, Benchmark, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. This year, the company has unveiled its first revenue product, Discover, which lets a selected group of partnering media companies air daily content on Snapchat.