Chewy

Chewy was founded by Ryan Cohen and Michael Day in 2011, when they were in their early twenties. The company is an online pet supply store that sells everything from toys to food to medicine for dogs, cats, fish, birds, small pets, reptiles, farm animals, and horses. The founders wanted to grow the company into a large business, but began with only their own funds and some small loans. In September 2013, a previously unsuccessful contact with Larry Cheng at Volition Capital turned out to be crucial to the company’s early success. After seeing that Chewy had beaten sales projections given to him previously, Cheng decided to invest $15 million into the company.

In 2017, PetSmart bought Chewy for $3.35 billion after both PetSmart and Petco approached the company about a merger or buyout. The billion-dollar deal allowed the company to go public and grow much larger than its initial $15 million investment. Today, Chewy.com offers more than 2,000 brands and has a team of customer service experts to answer pet care questions. The company is made up of 18,000 employees and operates from 17 locations across the United States.