30 companies worth at least $1 billion that didn't exist 10 years ago

Meero is an online editing and production tool assistant for photographers that uses artificial intelligence, akin to Photoshop — but much quicker and more streamlined. The tech behind Meero lets AI edit raw images automatically. It also matches freelance photographers with companies looking for content, with a 24-hour turnaround time. Meero raised $230 million in June, pushing its valuation to $1 billion to become one of Europe's fastest growing companies of the decade.

Meero CEO Thomas Rebaud wants to host more photographer meet-ups in the future, host masterclasses, and maybe even launch a magazine.

One of the more controversial startups of this decade, Juul, the e-cigarette company, sparked national outrage, congressional investigations, and criticism by the Food and Drug Administration, leading to total product bans in some countries.

Juul's rise was fast, thanks in part to its marketing strategy. Advertisements on social media — depicting young adults in flashy, bright-colored ads promoting e-cigarette flavors like cucumber and mango — are what some critics attribute to the epidemic of teenage nicotine use. A year after Juul's launch, sales rose 700%, selling over 1 million products.

But in September, Juul's CEO stepped down under increasing scrutiny over vaping's effect on lung health, despite the company touting its product as the safer alternative to cigarettes. The company also recently halted advertising in the US and its lobbying efforts in Washington. Its valuation fell from $38 billion earlier this year.

DoorDash launched in San Francisco in 2013, and has since gained a fair amount of competitors like UberEats, Postmates, and Seamless. This past summer, the company faced backlash for its pay model for delivery workers that sometimes meant workers didn't actually receive customers' tips. The company changed its policy following the criticism.

DoorDash remains a private company and cofounder Tony Xu told Forbes the company will not disclose financials, but is still not profitable. He said the company plans to continue to raise money, launch new products, and expand the service.

When WeWork was first introduced into society's consciousness, it was called revolutionary. WeWork's office spaces, sleek and full of amenities, attracted all kinds of members. Cofounder Adam Neumann proved to be so charming and persuasive that he secured a $4.4 billion investment from SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.

But when WeWork publicly filed its IPO paperwork in 2019, the public got its first look at the company's financials, which showed mounting losses, in the billions, concerning corporate governance. Combined with reports of erratic behavior by its eccentric CEO, Neumann, the IPO plans hit a wall and initial measures to placate potential investors weren't enough to save the public offering. WeWork eventually shelved its plan to go public indefinitely, and Neumann stepped down, but not without walking away with more than $1 billion. According to CB Insights, WeWork's valuation is around $8 billion now.

Instagram's partnerships with large chain grocery stores, like Amazon's Whole Foods, and its willingness to cater to "brick-and-mortar retailers," according to Recode, are essential for its future growth.

Like DoorDash, Instacart's fleet of workers have publicly called out the company for its pay model, which replaced tips with a service fee. The company brought the option to tip back, but the move still drew criticism after the location of the tipping feature changed.

The company's pay model still is an issue of contention for its workers, who just this past summer urged the platform's users to tip in cash instead of through the platform, and have even gone on strike.

With a user base of over 6 million, the app also offers the option of buying and trading of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin.

"There were a lot of people who didn't believe in it, and we had to bang down a ton of doors," cofounder Vlad Tenev told Business Insider. Some of Robinhood's flashier investors include Snoop Dogg and San Francisco-based venture capital firm Index Ventures.

Robinhood's rise didn't come without some roadblocks. Earlier this year, the company had to walk back the launch of its high-yield checking and savings accounts within just one day of its announcement.

In 2015, the company announced a $1 billion series F round led by SoftBank, making it the largest "single largest financing round in the fintech space" at the time.

In 2017, former SoFi CEO Mike Cagney stepped down after a New York Times investigation reported Cagney was at the center of sexual harassment claims and the company's "toxic" environment. Since the scandal, Anthony Noto — former chief operating officer of Twitter and former managing director at Goldman Sachs — has taken over and shown interest in SoFi entering the cryptocurrency game.

The last two years have seen a rise in e-scooter companies like Lime, which first launched in its hometown of Santa Monica and is now available in 120 markets around the world. Last year, however, was a tumultuous one for Lime, but was also the same year it hit the billion-dollar valuation mark.

The city of San Francisco sent the company a cease and desist alleging its "current business practices [that] create a public nuisance." Multiple studies examined the number of injuries caused by e-scooters, leading to a very public backlash, while newer reports suggest that cities don't know how to regulate them, or end up banning them completely, and riders don't really know how to ride them.

This past September, Postmates was valued at $2.4 billion after raising $225 million in funding — raising its total funding to $906 million. It first reached billion-dollar valuation status in 2018 as better-funded competitors entered the market. The company was expected to go public by the end of 2019, but its IPO has reportedly been shelved until 2020 at the earliest.

According to a report by Business Insider, Postmates remains "unprofitable and lags a crowded field of rivals in the food delivery market."

Founded in 2011, Impossible Foods makes plant-based foods to replace meat, dairy, and fish. This past year, the Silicon Valley-based company launched a nationwide partnership with Burger King, bringing its plant-based burgers to thousands of locations across the US.

Demand for its products led Impossible Foods to complete a $300 million Series E funding round in May, skyrocketing its valuation to $2 billion as the demand for a better vegetarian burger fires up. Some noteworthy investors include pop singer Katy Perry, tennis star Serena Williams, and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates. At the end of 2018, the company said it was turning out a million pounds of the product every month — and there are no signs of demand slowing down.

It it now raising $350 million at a $4 billion valuation, according to PitchBook.

The success of Hims, which was founded in San Francisco in 2017, is largely attributed to its splashy, millennial-focused ad campaigns. Hims offer users sexual-health products, birth control, skin care, and hair-loss treatments without having to physically go to the doctor to get a prescription.

The company has raised nearly $200 million since its launch, but has also sparked concern among some doctors who said the health startup's effort to increase the number of online patients that could be treated with generic Viagra was worrisome.

Founded in 2010, CEO Emily Weiss harnessed the power of her social media presence to build a community of dedicated makeup and skincare enthusiasts where "less is more" is the motto.

Glossier's products, famous for its "millennial pink" packaging, have been used by countless celebrities, but the company has also made a point of tracking down "micro" and "nano" influencers (those with 1,000 to 100,000 followers) and paying them to promote the brand through their personal Instagram profiles. With a small number of brick-and-mortar stores, Glossier instead does semi-regular pop-ups where customers can come shop IRL.

With over $400 million in revenue for 2018, and $355 million in total funding to date, Casper reached a $1.1 billion valuation in March.

The company opened a retail store last year, and plans to open over a hundred more in the coming year, on top of its products being available in most Target stores.

In addition to popularizing the boxed delivery of mattresses, Casper's success can be linked to a marketing strategy taken up by many other popular-among-millennial brands: ads, ads, ads — on the subway, on podcasts, on billboards, on social media. So what's next for the company dedicated to revolutionizing sleep? A possible IPO.

Warby Parker offers a wide variety of stylish eyewear and sunglasses, as well as eye exams, at low costs, attracting millions of customers and raking in nearly $300 million in funding. It was last valued at $1.75 billion.

Warby Parker has hundreds of stores around the US, but new features such as its "virtual try-on" is an attempt to attract customers outside of metropolitan hotspots and those who just don't have time to make an appointment. In 2018, the company said it had reached profitability, and its founders are talking about an initial public offering in terms of "when" not "if," according to Recode.

Lyft was founded in 2012 and quickly became one of Uber's closest competitors, though Uber remains the leader in the crowded ride-hailing market. Since it launched in San Francisco, the company went on to raise around $5 billion from big-name investors like General Motors, Andreessen Horowitz, and Google's parent company Alphabet, before eventually going public at $72 a share.

Since then, its share price has traded below the IPO share price. On Friday, it was trading at around $49 a share.

Lyft is available in nearly 700 cities in the US, despite having no clear timeline for reaching profitability. Lyft has also come under fire for some of the same reasons users revolted against Uber. In October, over 30 women filed a lawsuit against the company saying it did not do enough to protect them against sexual assault and, in some cases, kidnapping. Lyft drivers also went on strike in May to protest what they called poor work conditions and low pay rates.

With its products being praised as "Instagram worthy," Away has raised $181 million in total, sold over 1 million of its lightweight, high-tech suitcases, and is backed by models including Karlie Kloss.

Away's cofounder Jen Rubio got her start at Warby Parker. Rubio and the Away team are now working on wellness products and travel-approved apparel in addition to their luggage lineup.

As mental health initiatives spread across the country, the Calm app and its many features, like breathing exercises and sleep stories, have gained a lot of traction. Calm got the attention of celebrities like Aston Kutcher and his VC firm Sound Ventures. In July, Calm completed a $115 million Series B raise — bringing its valuation to a bit over $1 billion and making it the first so-called unicorn startup focused on meditation.

Cofounders Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith plan to expand Calm through its partnerships with XpresSpa, American Airlines, Sonos, and Uber.

ZipRecruiter uses artificial intelligence to connect hiring managers with job seekers. Over 100,000 businesses use ZipRecruiter to find the candidates, according to TechCrunch. With no whispers of a potential IPO just yet, cofounder Ian Siegel said the company will continue to improve its existing software.

It is safe to say Facebook's $1 billion investment in Instagram paid off. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, Instagram would be worth at least $100 billion as a standalone company. In 2018, the company announced it had reached 1 billion active monthly users, a number many expect to rise.

Since its launch, Instagram has expanded beyond photo sharing. There's IG TV, shopping, live video, stories, and even the ability to donate to different nonprofit organizations. More recently Instagram announced it was testing a feature that would do away with likes — a move that some praised and others threatened to quit the app over.

Oscar raised $375 million from Alphabet last year, and said it pulled in nearly $1 billion in revenue. Oscar caters to the digital-savvy in search of adequate health insurance who don't want to deal with too much red tape typically associated with signing up for insurance. The company has a couple hundred thousand users, its biggest age group being those 26 to 35 years old. Alphabet's $375 million in 2018 gave Google's parent company a ~10% stake, and pushed Oscar's valuation to $3.2 billion.

For the first nine months of 2018, according to state insurance filings reviewed by Business Insider, Oscar lost $12 million. That's significantly less of a loss than 2017, when it reported a $96 million loss in the third quarter alone. For the first half of 2019, the company said it took in $678 million in gross premium revenue, and that it generated a gross underwriting profit of $128 million.

This past summer, CEO Mario Schlosser announced Oscar's marketplace would start selling Obamacare plans, including Medicare Advantage plans, in 12 new markets starting in 2020.

Additional reporting by Lydia Ramsey and Clarrie Feinstein.

A year before Zume hit unicorn status, it was valued at only $170 million. But since its launch in 2015, Zume Pizza set out to revolutionize the pizza-making process — employing robots and artificial intelligence to man the kitchen and send out orders more swiftly at a low cost. CEO and cofounder Julian Collins said from Zume's data collection, it "predict what pizza you want before you even order it."

But the company is now pivoting amid an executive exodus as it restructuring to focus on growing revenues, Business Insider's Megan Hernbroth reported in November. In September, Zume announced a partnership to launch mobile kitchens, expanding into compostable packaging and food-truck services.

Allbirds launched in Silicon Valley in 2014 and has since raised over $77 million from investors including Fidelity and legacy firm Tiger Global Management. The core concept of Allbirds is its commitment to sustainability — the foam in the sneakers are made from sugarcane, and the textile of choice is, of course, Merino wool. Celebrities like Jessica Alba, Amy Adams, and Blake Lively have been seen sporting the sneaker, too.

The company has recently filed a lawsuit alleging Austrian footwear company Giesswein Walkwaren of copying its iconic kicks. And it wasn't the first time Allbirds went to court over another company over copying concerns. In 2017, the brand settled a suit with footwear giant Steve Madden. Allbirds recently called out Amazon's own wool shoes, and CEO Joey Zwillinger penned an open letter to Jeff Bezos asking the company to "please steal our approach to sustainability."

As for the future of Allbirds, founders of Tim Brown and Joey Zwillinger still plan on challenging "the status quo" of sustainable material innovation.

The Real Real got its start in 2011 in San Francisco. At first, the company was only online, but with its success selling items like Adidas Yeezys, Hermes Birkin bags, Chanel shoes, and Louboutin heels, it opened its first store in 2017.

Consumers eager to buy used designer items led The Real Real to grow quickly, opening new fulfillment centers and three stores in Los Angeles and New York City.

Julie Wainwright, the company's founder and CEO, told Recode that the luxury resale market remains largely online still — so don't get your hopes up for The Real Real department stores all over the world any time soon.

According to CEO Joshua Reeves, customer service and satisfaction are what drive him and his team to refine Gusto as a product for the average small business owner. Gusto's simplified platform has attracted over 100,000 customers, processing billions of dollars of payroll every year. It even lets business owners offer their employees health insurance, retirement and savings plans.

This past July, Gusto raised $200 million in funding, bringing its total to over $500 million. The next step for Gusto is to hire more employees and "double down on research and development," according to Crunchbase.

Lemonade uses an AI bot to create personalized renters and homeowners insurance policies on a simplified platform where users can be insured starting from $5 and $25 per month. Lemonade's ability to thoughtfully explain technical terminology, like what a deductible is, while making it easy to submit claims has won it the support of many millennials.

The startup has reportedly sold more than half a million insurance policies and generated more than $57 million in revenue last year. After a successful 2018, Lemonade announced its plans to bring the platform to all 50 states and Europe, as well as hire more employees to help manage its rapid growth.

Snapchat, the photo-and-video-based messaging app, launched in July 2011, and attracted millions of younger users who loved the platform's disappearing message feature. That's no longer the app's only draw, however. Snapchat has evolved as a social media company, introducing its Discover page, where users can find news and famous internet personalities, and a text chat feature, among other features. The app has almost 200 million daily users and continues to be one of the preferred platforms for Gen Z.

And though the company is worth around $23 billion today, and is considered to be this year's "best performing" tech stock, the LA Times reported in April that Snapchat has three years to reach profitability before it runs out of cash.

If you are interested in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, chances are you're already aware of Coinbase, though the app didn't really take off until 2014 when investors like rapper Nas and VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz began to take notice.

With more than half a billion dollars in total funding, Coinbase hopes to expand outside of the United States. Coinbase vice president Dan Romero told Business Insider in 2018 that the company's goal was to become the Google of crypto.

Autonomous vehicles seem to be on the mind of every car maker, including the biggest: VW is the world's biggest automaker by sales volume last year. And that's where Argo AI comes in. The autonomous-driving tech startup caught the eye, and cash, of two of the largest car makers in the world. Ford invested early with $1.6 billion, and with Volkswagen's $2.6 billion total investment, Argo AI's valuation reached new heights in 2019.

These partnerships will help Argo share the cost of getting its autonomous cars to the market, while also turning its attention to the future automation of off-road equipment, too. But with so many other competitors in the field, the race is on.

Clover Health's incentive is to do away with paperwork and focus more on the patient by using "predictive analytics technology" — a feature Clover promoted as a way to keep costs down using the Medicare Advantage Plan.

But the road hasn't been easy for the startup. Last year, seniors insured on Clover began receiving medical bills for blood work, a surprise experience that was not supposed to happen, according to the company.

And even five years after launching, Clover has managed to make its way into "select counties" in seven states, thanks to the historically slow-moving healthcare industry, one many other startups are attempting to disrupt. But that doesn't mean investors are not interested — in January, Clover raised $500 million, bringing its total funding to over $900 million, with help from Alphabet's venture arm GV.

Launched in 2012, 10x Genomics went public in September after hitting unicorn status in January. The company focuses on "single-cell sequencing" and has worked with institutions like Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

In 2017, the company, backed by investors like Softbank, said its sales reached $71 million. CEO Serge Saxonov was one of the founding researchers at 23andMe, and hopes 10x can help scientists better understand genetics down to a single-cell level. The company continues to sell its handful of products to academic, federal, and drug-development labs across the country, with plans to expand further, and make more DNA-focused acquisitions.

Check out a list of all the companies that hit $1 billion valuation in 2019 over on PitchBook.