There’s a pretty decent chance you’ve heard of a little company called Uber. It was a Crunchies finalist back in 2011 (for Best Location Application, alongside Runkeeper, Foursquare, Airbnb and Grindr), and it’s been doing rather well ever since.
As I am writing this, Uber has a $69 billion market cap (nice) and it’s a global superstar startup.
But it wasn’t always like this. Fifteen years ago, the company set out to raise a $200,000 round of financing with a different name (UberCab) and a different business model (limos you hail from your smartphone using SMS). In 2011, it launched in San Francisco, followed quickly after that in a number of other cities.
A lot has changed in the past 15 years. For one thing, the original iPhone had only just been launched (without the ability to install apps!), and fundraising has become a lot more sophisticated.
The U...
