{"id":207274,"date":"2025-09-07T09:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T09:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/207274\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T09:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T09:30:10","slug":"millennial-investor-behind-deliveroo-scale-ai-and-figma-made-millions-in-his-20s-he-shares-how-gen-z-can-spot-a-startup-thatll-make-them-rich-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/207274\/","title":{"rendered":"Millennial investor behind Deliveroo, Scale AI and Figma made millions in his 20s\u2014he shares how Gen Z can spot a startup that\u2019ll make them rich too"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back when Deliveroo was a tiny London-based platform, with just a few restaurants in its repertoire, there was one man who believed it\u2019d go on to become the multi-billion-dollar brand it is today: Martin Mignot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had eight employees. They were in three London boroughs. Overall, they had a few 1000 users to date, so it was very, very early,\u201d the 40-year-old investor exclusively tells Fortune. \u201cThey didn\u2019t have an app. Their first website was pretty terrible and ugly, if I\u2019m frank, but the delivery experience was incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

In those days, he adds that the founder, Will Shu would get on a bike and spend his evenings doing deliveries himself to really understand the experience from the driver. \u201cWhen you see that level of insight and then of commitment and greed and intensity, it\u2019s a no-brainer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, Deliveroo<\/a> is a $2.7 billion food delivery giant, with over 160,000 restaurants on its app and millions of hungry customers around the world. And it wasn\u2019t the first and last investment success for Mignot and his team at Index Ventures.<\/p>\n

Index Ventures, where he is a partner, has gone on to become the envy of Silicon Valley\u2014reaping billions from being among the first to invest in startup hits Figma<\/a>, Scale AI,<\/a> and Wiz<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Mignot has since led early investment in some of Europe\u2019s most iconic startups, including Revolut, Trainline and Personio. His bets paid off fast: By his late 20s, the millennial had cemented his reputation as one of the industry\u2019s most notable investors\u2014and made his first millions along the way.<\/p>\n

For Gen Z who want to emulate his success, he advises: \u201cIt\u2019s about owning equity, that is the key.\u201d<\/p>\n

The route to becoming a Gen Z millionaire: Own a company\u2014or part of it<\/p>\n

Gen Z can take one of two paths to become millionaires in their 20s: become a founder or join a startup that you can invest in early, Mignot says. Essentially, you need to own a company\u2014or, at least, part of one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEntrepreneurship is obviously the best way,\u201d he explains, with the caveat that it\u2019s also the more high-risk option of the two.<\/p>\n

For the generation that grew up with phones in their hands, he says, building products has never been easier. Then they can leverage their Instagram<\/a> and TikTok skills to sell them.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can use all of those amazing tools to code something, and then you can get massive reach if you\u2019re if you\u2019re clever and you\u2019re creative\u2014that\u2019s where Gen Z has a huge advantage,\u201d Mignot adds. \u201cThat\u2019s something that no other generation in history ever had.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other route, that is another great route, is joining amazing tech companies very early on,\u201d Mignot says, while adding that Index has long been campaigning to make stock options more easily accessible to people, especially in Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a fantastic way to become wealthy,\u201d he adds. \u201cYou won\u2019t become as wealthy as if you were the founder, but you\u2019re also not as attached to one company. You can own multiple companies over the years.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best career accelerator you can have is joining a Revolut, Robin Hood, or\u00a0 Figma early enough\u2014and you don\u2019t have to be the first employee. If your employee 100 at Revolut or 200, you\u2019re going to make a lot of money.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

On top of that, he adds, you\u2019ll see your career grow at an exponential rate. \u201cYou\u2019re going to have such an asset for your next role, and that next role could be another very fast-growing company in a more senior role, or it can be starting your own thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd again, that\u2019s how you make wealth by being an owner. That\u2019s what stock options give you. You become an owner of the company you work for, and that\u2019s how you build wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n

How to spot the next Meta or Figma<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re not tech-savvy. Mignot says anyone can break into the startup industry\u2014like any other company, they still need the likes of marketers and salespeople, and they tend to hire young. \u201cIf you look at Revolut hiring strategies, it\u2019s a lot about hiring very smart, very young, very hungry people who really want to make it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But how can you tell if you\u2019re applying for the next stock market darling?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at most of the recent tech IPOs, they will have been backed by a venture capital fund by and large,\u201d he says, adding that young people should look at which startups VC firms like Index Ventures are backing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are millions of companies getting started every day,\u201d he says. So, trying to find a unicorn is quite literally like finding a needle in a haystack if you go at it alone. \u201cThere\u2019s no chance,\u201d he adds. But the best venture capital funds \u201cdo it again and again and again.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Find the top 20 VC firms<\/a> and make a list of their recent investments. \u201cLook at the series A companies, that is where you find the next Revolute, and where you can really own a lot of that of that business, as well, as well as have an amazing kind of career trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n

To narrow down your list of potential employers, Mignot suggests doing some serious digging.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to learn a lot and have an impact. It\u2019s also to become an owner of that business. So do your research as if you were investing in that company,\u201d he adds. \u201cThat means look at all the sources you can find about that business online. Can you get behind the scenes to do your diligence? Can you find employees or ex-employees? Can you reach out to them on LinkedIn? Talk to competitors. Think like an investor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And whatever you do, don\u2019t box yourself in. \u201cWe live in an incredible time where everything is getting more accessible,\u201d Mignot concludes. \u201cDon\u2019t limit yourself to a single geography, think global, do your due diligence and just go along for a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back when Deliveroo was a tiny London-based platform, with just a few restaurants in its repertoire, there was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":207275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,244,113915,26449,3991,268,18213,8709,18316,30674,28953,158,67,132,68,1594],"class_list":{"0":"post-207274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-billionaires","11":"tag-deliveroo","12":"tag-figma","13":"tag-gen-z","14":"tag-investment","15":"tag-investment-advice","16":"tag-investors","17":"tag-ipos","18":"tag-millionaires","19":"tag-start-ups","20":"tag-technology","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-venture-capital"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}