These 15 startups didn't exist 5 years ago - now they're worth billions

Founded: 2012

Valuation: $1 billion

While Compass functions like a traditional broker, the company's promise is using technology to reduce the time and friction of buying and selling a house or apartment. In July, Compass released an app designed to replace "stale" quarterly market reports with more dynamic information. In the app, buyers and sellers can search by standard things like neighborhood, number of bedrooms, price range, and so on. But they can also look at more advanced metrics, like year-over-year analysis of median price per square foot, days on the market, and negotiability.

Founded: 2013

Valuation: $1 billion

In 2014, Illumio emerged from stealth. Six months later, it had already racked up a billion dollar valuation, thanks to its new approach to security. The idea involves watching the applications themselves to make sure they aren't doing anything they are not supposed to do, indicating a hacker or a virus. It places a tiny bit of code (called an agent) on every computer and operating system to watch all the apps. Companies can then install the software that watches the apps in their own data center, or they can hire Illumio's cloud service to watch the apps for them. And then the security follows the app wherever it goes, even if an app moves from one server to another, or from the data center to a cloud computing service.

Founded: 2013

Valuation: $1 billion

Carbon3D grabbed headlines and attention for its method of seemingly creating shapes out of a liquid resin soup. It's much more complicated than that, but Carbon3D has caught the eye of everyone from Ford to Johnson & Johnson. While Ford imagines a future of speedy customizable parts, like custom designed cup holders, healthcare operators are looking at Carbon3D for a fast way to create surgical parts.

The machines are already being tested less than a year after they launched. In April, it released its M1 printer.

Founded: 2014

Valuation: $1.1 billion

Opendoor is betting that homeowners would take a guaranteed sale over a higher price. It calculates a fair market value and pays homeowners before re-selling the home with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

Founded: 2014

Valuation: $1.1 billion

Former Groupon founder Brad Keywell started the secretive Chicago-based data analytics startup in 2014. Already it's working with Caterpillar to be the analytics backbone of heavy industries like manufacturing, construction, rail, and more. Its sensors and data analysis should be able to help companies predict revenue and save money, according to Forbes.

Founded: 2012

Valuation: $1.1 billion

Flatiron Health is a software company that organizes the world’s oncology information and makes it accessible for doctors, patients, and researchers. In January 2016, Roche, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies, made a $175 million investment in the company, which valued the company at $1.1 billion.

Founded: 2014

Valuation: $1.55 billion

Despite remaining in stealth, Zoox has already raised $290 million for its unseen product. The only hint its founder Tim Kentley-Klay has given was at a conference in October when he described it as Disneyland on the streets:

“At Zoox what we’re creating...is not a self-driving car any more than the automobile is a horseless carriage. We’re not building a robo-taxi service, we’re actually creating an advanced mobility service,” Kentley-Klay said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “You can really think of it as Disneyland on the streets of perhaps San Francisco and that means a vehicle which is smart enough to understand its environment but it’s also importantly smart enough to understand you, where you need to be, what you want to do in the vehicle, and how you want to move around the city.”

Founded: 2012

Valuation: $1.9 billion

Often dubbed "Uber for groceries," Instacart eliminates the need to ever set food in a grocery store. The service will deliver your full load of groceries, hand-picked by a personal shopper at local stores.

In 2016, the company deepened its relationship with Whole Foods after the grocery retailer invested in the company and signed a multi-year delivery contract.

Founded: 2012

Valuation: $1.5 billion

Founded: 2012

Valuation: $1.6 billion

Self-driving car startups aren't the only billion-dollar bets around. Quanergy isn't building its own car, but instead specializes in building LiDAR systems — the 3D sensing systems that self-driving cars use to the see the world. Already the startup has struck partnerships with vehicle-makers including Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai.

Founded: 2012

Valuation: $2 billion

Founded: 2012

Valuation: $2 billion

One of two highly-valued Chicago startups, online lending company Avant targets subprime borrowers — people with lower credit scores. To date, the startup has given out more than 500,000 loans, totaling more than $3 billion.

Founded: 2012

Valuation: $2 billion

Zenefits' valuation took a haircut in 2016. The startup, once valued at $4.5 billion, experienced turmoil after it was discovered that its CEO had created a program designed to cheat state regulations. After installing a new CEO and launching Zenefits 2.0, the company also repriced its stock, shaving its valuation from $4.5 billion to a cool $2 billion — still a lot of money for a five-year-old company.

Founded: 2013

Valuation: $2.8 billion

Pivotal sells a set of software tools and consulting services to help even the largest, most old-school companies build and develop software as if they were a tiny startup. Pivotal becomes their secret weapon as they turn to newfangled cloud computing and data-crunching technologies to stay competitive in a digital world. In May, Ford led a $253 million investment in the company alongside Microsoft.