Apoorva Mehta | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1986 (age 38–39) |
| Education | University of Waterloo |
| Occupation(s) | CEO and co-founder, Cloud Health Systems |
| Known for | Founder of Instacart |
Apoorva Mehta (born 1986) is a billionaire Canadian-American businessman and the founder of Instacart and Cloud Health Systems. [1] [2] As of September 2023 he had a net worth of $1.3 billion, owing to his 10% ownership share of Instacart and his stake in Cloud Health Systems. [3]
Mehta was born in 1986 in Jodhpur, India. [4] He moved to Libya shortly after he was born, where his father worked for electric transmission line company. [4] In 2000, when he was 14, he and his family moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. [4] He graduated from the University of Waterloo with an electrical engineering degree. [5] [6]
Mehta worked for four months as a design engineer at Blackberry [4] and Qualcomm before joining Amazon in 2008 [4] [5] [7] as a supply-chain engineer. [4] [7] In 2010, Mehta left Amazon and moved to San Francisco to become an entrepreneur. [7] Between 2010 and 2012, he launched 20 startups, almost all of which failed. [4] [5] Failed businesses included an advertising startup for gaming companies and a social network for lawyers. [8]
After getting inspiration from being low on groceries without owning a car [8] as well as his trips to the grocery store by bus in the cold while growing up in Canada, [9] Mehta founded Instacart in 2012 at age 26. He tried to apply for funding through Y Combinator but missed the deadline. He eventually got a meeting by using the Instacart mobile app to deliver a six-pack of beer from 21st Amendment Brewery to a Y Combinator partner [8] and was admitted to the summer of 2012 batch. [7] [10] Y Combinator helped Mehta raise $2.3 million in funding [8] and enabled him to meet his two co-founders, Max Mullen and Brandon Leonardo. [9]
In July 2021, Mehta resigned as CEO and became the executive chairman. He left the company entirely in September 2023. [11]
In 2022, Mehta founded Cloud Health Systems, a medical consulting venture. The company raised $30 million in seed funding, led by venture capital firm Thrive Capital, and was valued at $200 million. [12]
Mehta was included on Forbes 30 under 30 in 2013. [7] In 2021, he was included on the Time 100 Next. [13]