This free sheet contains all the information about the top 100 unicorns, including their valuation, HQ's location, founded year, name of founders, funding amount and number of employees.
Once a company crosses the $1 Billion mark, it becomes part of a rare and exclusive club: The Unicorn Club.
The concept was first introduced in 2013 by VC Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures, who used the term to describe rare tech startups valued at $1 billion or more.
As of 2023, there are 1,000+ unicorn startups globally. Some well-known startups include:
Total Number of Unicorn Companies Worldwide: 1,190
Total Cumulative VC Funding: $653 Billion
The United States and China dominate the unicorn landscape, with 641 and 171 unicorns, respectively. These two countries have established themselves as major tech hubs and innovation centers, with vast sectors, investment capital, and supporting infrastructure for startups.
India has a significant number of unicorns at 68, showing that it's quickly becoming an important technology hub for startups.
Among European countries, the United Kingdom leads with 49 unicorns. Germany (30) and France (25) are other noteworthy contributors in the region.
Beyond China and India, South Korea and Singapore stand out with 14 unicorns each. They serve as significant tech and innovation hubs in Asia, with established ecosystems for startups.
The combined percentage of FinTech, internet software & services, and e-commerce is over 48%. This indicates that about half of startups rely heavily on or are oriented toward consumer-based operations.
Despite some sectors being more dominant than others, the presence of a wide range of industries suggests that the startup ecosystem is diverse, offering multiple avenues for innovation and investment.
The underrepresentation of some sectors may not necessarily mean they are less important but could point to the unique challenges or higher entry barriers associated with those sectors.
Note that ByteDance's outsized VC funding significantly skews the average funding in the 'Media and Entertainment' industry. This makes it an outlier that disproportionately affects that industry's overall average.
Despite being the biggest startup sectors, FinTech and Internet software services do not have the highest average funding. They have approximately $498M and $424M, respectively. This could imply that these are more mature markets where startups may not require as much capital to scale.
Artificial Intelligence startups show an average total funding of $388M. As time goes on, we will see a new emergence of new AI startups in this list, given its current momentum. In contrast, Blockchain has one of the lowest total average funding, at about $184M. This might be attributed to the experimental nature of decentralized technology.
Transportation and Travel industries have a higher average funding, with $860M and $951M, respectively. This could indicate the capital-intensive nature of these industries, given the need for infrastructure, technology, and regulatory compliance.
More than a quarter of the unicorns (25.63%) have a single founder. This indicates that while having a co-founder is important, there are many instances where a solo entrepreneur can successfully build a unicorn company.
Larger founding teams (i.e., seven founders or more) represent only a tiny fraction of unicorns, with a combined percentage of just 1.08%. This suggests that it's relatively rare for such large teams to reach unicorn status, possibly due to challenges in decision-making, equity distribution, or other factors that come with having many founders.
