Unicorn Companies Tracker

PitchBook defines a unicorn company as: A venture-backed company that raised a round at post-money valuation of $1 billion or more. These were rare in the past; when venture capitalist Aileen Lee coined the term in 2013, there were only 39, but as of June 14 this year there are now more than 1,200 active globally. The importance of unicorns is demonstrated in venture capital, wherein the 'power law' states that a small number of companies deliver most of a fund's returns.

Examples of top-valued unicorns include Ant Group, Stripe, and SpaceX. Because the elite group of unicorns has become so large, some argue that new terms are needed to describe them, such as 'decacorn' which refers to startups valued above $10 billion, or alternatively 'dragon' which puts the marker at $12 billion.

The distribution of unicorns by country is, as one might expect, dominated by a few. The US has over half of them, with 662, and China and India are the runner-ups with 212 and 68 unicorns respectively. The UK with 37 and Germany with 25 round out the top 5.

In 2021, nearly 8% of all companies receiving VC funding globally were valued at or above $1 billion according to PitchBook data. The growth in VC fund sizes is one reason so many funding rounds now involve unicorn companies. Late-stage investors such as SoftBank have tech investment strategies built around backing unicorns; though, due to increasing competition, some of these investors are moving to earlier stage deals, hoping to build rapport with the unicorns of tomorrow.