Maplebear Inc. (CART)

Instacart delivers groceries from other people's shops and sells advertising to the brands whose products sit in them.

The platform owns no warehouses and buys no goods: the shopper picks a store, a shopper assembles the basket from the shelves and delivers it. The fee is split between the store, the shopper and the platform, and earning on a single delivery is nearly impossible — which is exactly why the model was unprofitable for a long time.

Profit came from elsewhere: food manufacturers pay to have their product shown higher in the catalogue search. That is advertising at almost no cost, and it supplies most of the profit on a small share of revenue. Risks: large chains' own delivery, shopper labour costs and regulation of their employment status. The company pays no dividend.