Deliveroo's first investor shares the secret to spotting the next startup jackpot
I recently sat down with Martin Mignot, the millennial investor who made millions in his 20s betting on buzzy startups before they hit unicorn status.
He was the first to back Deliveroo when the now $2.7 billion food delivery giant had just eight employees. And he’s repeated that success with Figma, Scale AI, Wiz, and Revolut as a partner at Index Ventures.
For those wanting to emulate his success and make their first million before hitting 30, Mignot said they need to own a company—or part of it. “That’s what stock options give you. You become an owner of the company you work for, and that’s how you build wealth,” he said in an exclusive interview with Fortune.
“The best career accelerator you can have is joining a Revolut, Robinhood, or Figma early enough—and you don’t have to be the first employee. If you're employee 100 at Revolut or 200, you’re going to make a lot of money.”
And it doesn’t matter if you’re not tech-savvy. Mignot says anyone can break into the startup industry—like any other company, they still need the likes of marketers and salespeople, and they tend to hire young.
Now it’s just a matter of knowing which companies to apply for.
“If you look at most of the recent tech IPOs, they will have been backed by a venture capital fund by and large,” Mignot says.
It’s why he recommends young people who want to work at the next big thing, start their job hunt by narrowing down the top 20 VC firms, and then make a list of their recent investments.
“There are millions of companies getting started every day,” he adds. So, trying to find a unicorn is quite literally like finding a needle in a haystack if you go at it alone. “There’s no chance,” he adds. But the best venture capital funds “do it again and again and again.”
“Look at the series A companies, that is where you find the next Revolut, and where you can really own a lot of that business, as well as have an amazing kind of career trajectory.”
—Orianna Rosa Royle, Success Associate Editor, Fortune
Got a career tip or dilemma? Get in touch: orianna.royle@fortune.com You can also find me on LinkedIn: @oriannarosa
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This is what some of the people within revolut are. The whole company is amazing, but some decide they have right to discriminate against someone who looks different. I have vitiligo, and my manager based on that passed people from my own batch that I helped ignoring my contributions, because he didn't like the way I looked. Vitiligo is genetic, and no one has the right to discriminate against it. If you guys join, same thing will happen to you. They will consider us indians and loot us if managers like michal are left in power. Speak up! I will keep saying this till someone listens and gets one of my most toxic managers out ever
Great piece, Orianna. Love how you distilled Martin’s journey into practical advice, especially the focus on joining Series A companies early and tracking top VC portfolios. It’s a smart, actionable playbook for anyone aiming to break into tech and grow wealth beyond salary alone.
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