Neil here.
As of yesterday, Instacart is officially the second most valuable startup in the United States.
The grocery store delivery app raised a whopping $265 million in a recently announced funding round from big-name investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. The round more than doubled Instacart’s valuation, which now sits at $39 billion.
The only US-based startup worth more than Instacart is Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is valued at $74 billion.
This news really got me thinking. Pre-pandemic, Instacart was popular, sure. The company has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in a series of funding rounds since its founding in 2017.
But its popularity spiked in 2020, with a 500% increase in order volume within the first two months of COVID alone. This latest funding round demonstrates that even as we roll up our sleeves for vaccines and the world slowly (and hopefully) heads back to normal through the year, investor confidence in Instacart’s services remains strong.
And I think that demonstrates a wider trend… that many of the industries we’ve seen boom more than ever before over the last 12 months will continue to grow faster than ever.
It’s one of the biggest paradigm shifts we’ve ever seen, and I doubt we’ll see these massive shifts in consumer behavior slow down anytime soon.
And where there are shifts like this, I expect to see plenty of opportunity in the startup world come down the line soon, across a wide range of industries.
Think about it. Many of the services we’ve grown accustomed to using regularly – Instacart, Amazon, DoorDash, and more – make life much more convenient, pandemic or not.
Others have made life more fun. I’m thinking about streaming services like Netflix, Twitch, and TikTok, which all saw record growth in 2020 alone. Even the video game industry, which has long been a fast-growing market, boomed more than ever in the past year.
And there are plenty of companies capitalizing on that growth. Gaming sales spiked by 20% in 2020, hitting almost $180 billion. This year, experts expect gaming sales to soar as consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox One power the market.
One company is even developing a brand-new console that’s set to launch later this year. It has already secured $25 million in pre-launch revenue, and its founder is getting ready to cut checks for investors in just a few months.
(It’s a revenue-sharing deal… you can get all the details on what that means here.)
Industry specifics aside, at the end of the day, the changes we’ve seen from the past year are here to stay… most likely for good. Instacart’s latest funding round is just the beginning of what’s to come for the companies that have seen the most success through the year.
And the money-making opportunities from these types of worldwide changes are extremely rare. I would even categorize this one as a once-in-a-lifetime market event… and you’re in a prime position to play it.
You likely will not see paradigm shifts this large ever again. I strongly encourage you to seek out the best opportunities from the best startups that are capitalizing on these changes.
These are the companies that have proven they can persevere through just about whatever the market throws at them… and these are the companies that will likely keep soaring even as the world settles back to normal.
One company that fits the bill? This one.
I’ve even invested in it myself, and you can invest at exactly the same deal terms.
The offering likely won’t be open for a long time, so if you’re interested in checking it out, I’m breaking down all the details over here.
I’ll be back soon with another update.
Until next time,
Neil Patel
As of yesterday, Instacart is officially the second most valuable startup in the United States.
The grocery store delivery app raised a whopping $265 million in a recently announced funding round from big-name investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. The round more than doubled Instacart’s valuation, which now sits at $39 billion.
The only US-based startup worth more than Instacart is Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is valued at $74 billion.
This news really got me thinking. Pre-pandemic, Instacart was popular, sure. The company has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in a series of funding rounds since its founding in 2017.
But its popularity spiked in 2020, with a 500% increase in order volume within the first two months of COVID alone. This latest funding round demonstrates that even as we roll up our sleeves for vaccines and the world slowly (and hopefully) heads back to normal through the year, investor confidence in Instacart’s services remains strong.
And I think that demonstrates a wider trend… that many of the industries we’ve seen boom more than ever before over the last 12 months will continue to grow faster than ever.
It’s one of the biggest paradigm shifts we’ve ever seen, and I doubt we’ll see these massive shifts in consumer behavior slow down anytime soon.
And where there are shifts like this, I expect to see plenty of opportunity in the startup world come down the line soon, across a wide range of industries.
Think about it. Many of the services we’ve grown accustomed to using regularly – Instacart, Amazon, DoorDash, and more – make life much more convenient, pandemic or not.
Others have made life more fun. I’m thinking about streaming services like Netflix, Twitch, and TikTok, which all saw record growth in 2020 alone. Even the video game industry, which has long been a fast-growing market, boomed more than ever in the past year.
And there are plenty of companies capitalizing on that growth. Gaming sales spiked by 20% in 2020, hitting almost $180 billion. This year, experts expect gaming sales to soar as consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox One power the market.
One company is even developing a brand-new console that’s set to launch later this year. It has already secured $25 million in pre-launch revenue, and its founder is getting ready to cut checks for investors in just a few months.
(It’s a revenue-sharing deal… you can get all the details on what that means here.)
Industry specifics aside, at the end of the day, the changes we’ve seen from the past year are here to stay… most likely for good. Instacart’s latest funding round is just the beginning of what’s to come for the companies that have seen the most success through the year.
And the money-making opportunities from these types of worldwide changes are extremely rare. I would even categorize this one as a once-in-a-lifetime market event… and you’re in a prime position to play it.
You likely will not see paradigm shifts this large ever again. I strongly encourage you to seek out the best opportunities from the best startups that are capitalizing on these changes.
These are the companies that have proven they can persevere through just about whatever the market throws at them… and these are the companies that will likely keep soaring even as the world settles back to normal.
One company that fits the bill? This one.
I’ve even invested in it myself, and you can invest at exactly the same deal terms.
The offering likely won’t be open for a long time, so if you’re interested in checking it out, I’m breaking down all the details over here.
I’ll be back soon with another update.
Until next time,
Neil Patel
Follow @angelsandentrepreneurs
