Remember when Uber was just UberCab? A taxi app that freaked people out because "Why would you voluntarily get into a stranger's car?" The days before its scandals dominated the tech news cycle and Travis Kalanick wasn't among the villains of the tech world?
What about when Slack was still called Tiny Speck and was the provider of a computer game called Glitch? Yeah, they really did a 180.
Or when a little startup called AirBed & Breakfast was selling collectible cereal boxes to survive after investors told them their market was too small? That was before Sequoia took a chance on them and led the company's $600,000 seed round.
Today's most buzzworthy venture capital-backed companies had a life before they were unicorns, and almost all of them had a different name, too. Here's a look at 10 of the most valuable VC-backed companies' early fundings and some investors who made early bets:
