Where and when was each company founded?

Question 1

Where was 3M founded?

Accepted Answer

In Two Harbors, Minnesota, in 1902, as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. It moved to Duluth in 1905 and to St. Paul in 1910.

Question 2

Where was Adobe founded?

Accepted Answer

In John Warnock's garage in 1982. The name comes from Adobe Creek, which ran behind his house in Los Altos. Adobe was later based in Mountain View, and moved its headquarters to downtown San Jose in the mid-1990s; its first tower there opened in 1996.

Question 3

Where did Alibaba start?

Accepted Answer

In 1999, in Jack Ma's Lakeside Gardens apartment in Hangzhou, where 18 founders gathered. Taobao was also founded there in 2003. Alibaba moved its campus to Yu Hang District in 2013.

Question 4

Where did Amazon start?

Accepted Answer

In the garage of Jeff Bezos's home in Bellevue, Washington, in 1994.

Question 5

Where was AMD founded?

Accepted Answer

In Sunnyvale, California, on May 1, 1969, by Jerry Sanders and seven others from Fairchild Semiconductor.

Question 6

When was ASOS founded?

Accepted Answer

In 2000; the company was incorporated on 2 June 2000.

Question 7

Where was Audi founded?

Accepted Answer

In Zwickau, Saxony. August Horch founded the company in 1909 at Lessingstraße 51 (today Audistraße 7/9); it was registered as Audi Automobilwerke on April 25, 1910. The site is now the August Horch Museum.

Question 8

Where did AXA start?

Accepted Answer

As Ancienne Mutuelle de Rouen, a Normandy mutual insurer created in the early 19th century. Its 1968 headquarters was in Belbeuf, near Rouen; the AXA name was launched in 1985.

Question 9

When was BBVA founded?

Accepted Answer

Its oldest root, Banco de Bilbao, opened on August 24, 1857 in Bilbao. BBV was formed in 1988 and BBVA in 1999.

Question 10

Where was Best Buy founded?

Accepted Answer

In St. Paul, Minnesota, where Dick Schulze opened a store called Sound of Music on August 22, 1966. It became Best Buy in 1983.

Question 11

Where did Boeing start?

Accepted Answer

In Seattle. In 1910 Bill Boeing bought Heath Shipyard on the Duwamish River; it became the company's first headquarters, the Red Barn, used from 1916 to 1970 and now preserved at the Museum of Flight.

Question 12

Where was Bosch founded?

Accepted Answer

In Stuttgart, in 1886, in a courtyard workshop at 75B Rotebühlstrasse. The first own factory followed in 1901.

Question 13

Where was Bridgestone founded?

Accepted Answer

In Kurume, Fukuoka Prefecture, on March 1, 1931, when founder Shojiro Ishibashi spun off the tire division of Japan Tabi. The head office moved to Tokyo in May 1937.

Question 14

Where was Burberry founded?

Accepted Answer

In Basingstoke, England, in 1856, by 21-year-old Thomas Burberry.

Question 15

When was CaixaBank founded?

Accepted Answer

Its origin is the Caja de Pensiones para la Vejez y de Ahorros, founded in Barcelona in 1904 by Francesc Moragas i Barret.

Question 16

Where did Canva start?

Accepted Answer

In Perth, where Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht ran the yearbook company Fusion Books from her mother's living room. They moved to Sydney and opened Canva's first office in Surry Hills in 2012; Canva launched in 2013.

Question 17

Where was Cboe founded?

Accepted Answer

In a converted smoking lounge in the Chicago Board of Trade Building, on April 26, 1973.

Question 18

Where was Commerzbank founded?

Accepted Answer

In Hamburg, on February 26, 1870, as the Commerz- und Disconto-Bank. Its head office later moved to Berlin (1905), Hamburg (1945), Düsseldorf (1958) and Frankfurt (from 1970).

Question 19

Where was Crédit Agricole founded?

Accepted Answer

In Salins-les-Bains, in the Jura, where the first local bank — the Caisse de crédit mutuel agricole de l'arrondissement de Poligny — set up its head office on 25 February 1885.

Question 20

Where was Cybozu founded?

Accepted Answer

In a two-room apartment in Matsuyama, Ehime, on August 8, 1997. The company moved to Osaka in 1998–99 and made Tokyo its head office in December 2000.

Question 21

Where was Daikin founded?

Accepted Answer

In Osaka, on October 25, 1924, when Akira Yamada set up Osaka Kinzoku Kogyosho Limited Partnership to make radiator tubes for aircraft.

Question 22

Where was Danone founded?

Accepted Answer

In Barcelona, where Isaac Carasso made the first Danone yogurt in 1919. His son Daniel took the company to Paris in 1929, opening a first store in Montmartre.

Question 23

Where was Dell founded?

Accepted Answer

In Austin, Texas: in 1984 Michael Dell, then a freshman at the University of Texas, founded PC's Limited with $1,000.

Question 24

Where was Delta founded?

Accepted Answer

As Huff Daland Dusters, a crop-dusting company. Its first office opened in the Bibb Building in downtown Macon, Georgia, in February 1925; it moved to Monroe, Louisiana, later that year, and became Delta Air Service there in 1928.

Question 25

Where did Dentsu start?

Accepted Answer

In 1901, in a small rented house only 12 feet wide by 18 feet deep, where founder Hoshio Mitsunaga sold newspaper ads to fund a news agency.

Question 26

When was Eni founded?

Accepted Answer

On February 10, 1953, as Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, a public agency led by Enrico Mattei. It became the joint stock company Eni SpA in 1992 and was listed in 1995.

Question 27

When was Ericsson founded?

Accepted Answer

On April 1, 1876, when Lars Magnus Ericsson opened a small engineering workshop at Drottninggatan 15 in Stockholm.

Question 28

Where was FedEx founded?

Accepted Answer

In Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1971, by Frederick W. Smith.

Question 29

When was Fivetran founded?

Accepted Answer

In 2012, by George Fraser and Taylor Brown, out of Y Combinator.

Question 30

Where was Fujifilm founded?

Accepted Answer

At the Ashigara factory in Minami-Ashigara, Kanagawa, completed in 1933, which Fujifilm says became the head office of Fuji Photo Film when it was founded on January 20, 1934.

Question 31

Where was Generali founded?

Accepted Answer

In Palazzo Carciotti on the Trieste waterfront in 1831. Generali bought the building back in December 2024 and plans to open the Agorai Innovation Hub there.

Question 32

When was Glenmede founded?

Accepted Answer

In 1956, in Philadelphia.

Question 33

Where was Goldman Sachs founded?

Accepted Answer

In a one-room office on Pine Street in Lower Manhattan in 1869. In 1930 the firm opened its own 20-story building, 30 Pine Street, on the same site.

Question 34

Where did Google start?

Accepted Answer

In a garage in Menlo Park, California, owned by Susan Wojcicki, after Google was incorporated in August 1998.

Question 35

Where was Grab founded?

Accepted Answer

In Malaysia, where it launched as MyTeksi in 2012, founded by Anthony Tan and Tan Hooi Ling.

Question 36

Where did H&M start?

Accepted Answer

In Västerås, Sweden, where Erling Persson opened the womenswear store Hennes in 1947. The first Stockholm store followed in 1952.

Question 37

When was Heineken founded?

Accepted Answer

On February 15, 1864, when Gerard Adriaan Heineken took over the Haystack brewery in Amsterdam.

Question 38

Where did Hilton start?

Accepted Answer

In Cisco, Texas, in 1919, when Conrad Hilton bought The Mobley, a local hotel, instead of the bank he had come to buy.

Question 39

Where did HP start?

Accepted Answer

In the garage behind a house at 367 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto, in 1938–39. It is California Historic Landmark No. 976, the “Birthplace of Silicon Valley”; HP bought the property in 2000 and restored it in 2005.

Question 40

When was HubSpot founded?

Accepted Answer

HubSpot dates its founding to 2006; the company was first formed as a Delaware LLC on April 4, 2005, by MIT graduate students Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.

Question 41

Where was IBM founded?

Accepted Answer

In Endicott, New York, as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company on June 16, 1911.

Question 42

Where was Intel founded?

Accepted Answer

In a conference room of the old Union Carbide building on Middlefield Road in Mountain View, in 1968.

Question 43

Where was Intuit founded?

Accepted Answer

In a small room on University Avenue in Palo Alto, in 1983.

Question 44

Where did John Deere start?

Accepted Answer

In Grand Detour, Illinois, where blacksmith John Deere built a steel plow in 1837. The business moved to Moline in 1848.

Question 45

Where did Johnson & Johnson start?

Accepted Answer

On the top floor of a former wallpaper factory, the Janeway & Carpender building, beside the railroad in New Brunswick, in 1886 — with 14 employees.

Question 46

When was Kao founded?

Accepted Answer

In June 1887, when Tomiro Nagase opened Nagase Shoten, a Western sundries dealer. The company was incorporated in May 1940 and took the name Kao Corporation in 1985.

Question 47

When was Klarna founded?

Accepted Answer

On April 10, 2005, in Stockholm, under the name Kreditor.

Question 48

Where did Lowe's start?

Accepted Answer

In North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, where L.S. Lowe opened Lowe's North Wilkesboro Hardware in 1921. The executive offices stayed in Wilkes County (North Wilkesboro, then Wilkesboro) until the move to Mooresville in 2003.

Question 49

When was Lyft founded?

Accepted Answer

The company started in 2007 as Zimride, a carpool service, and launched Lyft in 2012. It took the name Lyft, Inc. in 2013.

Question 50

Where did Macquarie start?

Accepted Answer

At Gold Fields House in Sydney, where its predecessor Hill Samuel Australia opened on December 10, 1969 with three employees.

Question 51

Where was Money Forward founded?

Accepted Answer

In a one-room apartment in Takadanobaba, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, in May 2012, under the name Moneybook Co., Ltd.

Question 52

When was MongoDB founded?

Accepted Answer

In 2007, as 10gen; it became MongoDB, Inc. in August 2013.

Question 53

When was Munich Re founded?

Accepted Answer

Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft was officially founded on April 3, 1880, and opened for business that April in two rooms at Maffeistraße 1 in Munich.

Question 54

When was Nestlé founded?

Accepted Answer

Nestlé dates its history to 1866, when the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Company was founded in Cham. Henri Nestlé launched his infant cereal in Vevey in 1867, and the two companies merged in 1905.

Question 55

When was Netflix founded?

Accepted Answer

August 29, 1997.

Question 56

Where did Nintendo start?

Accepted Answer

As a hanafuda card maker founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi in Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto, in September 1889. The headquarters moved to Higashiyama-ku in 1959 and to Minami-ku in 2000.

Question 57

Where was Nokia founded?

Accepted Answer

Fredrik Idestam founded his first wood-pulp mill in 1865 on the Tammerkoski rapids in Tampere. A second mill on the Nokianvirta river gave the company its name.

Question 58

When was Novartis founded?

Accepted Answer

In 1996, through the merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz, announced on March 7, 1996. Its roots go back to Geigy (1758), Ciba (1859) and Sandoz (1886), all in Basel.

Question 59

Where was Olympus founded?

Accepted Answer

In the Hatagaya district of Shibuya, Tokyo, on October 12, 1919, as Takachiho Seisakusho, a company set up to make microscopes in Japan.

Question 60

Where was Oracle founded?

Accepted Answer

In a 900 sq ft office in Santa Clara, California, in 1977, as Software Development Laboratories. It moved to Redwood Shores in 1989.

Question 61

Where was Panasonic founded?

Accepted Answer

In a rented two-storey house in Ohiraki-cho, now Ohiraki 2-chome, Fukushima-ku, Osaka, on March 7, 1918.

Question 62

Where did Phillips start?

Accepted Answer

Phillips Petroleum Company was founded in 1917 and headquartered in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

Question 63

When was PUMA founded?

Accepted Answer

Rudolf Dassler started his company in Herzogenaurach in 1948; operations began on June 1, 1948, and the PUMA brand was registered on October 1, 1948.

Question 64

Where was Qualcomm founded?

Accepted Answer

The seven founders met in the den of Irwin Jacobs' San Diego home in 1985, and the first office opened in La Jolla in July 1985.