This year has gotten off to a strong start for unicorns. The startup company’s valuation is over $1 billion. According to financial data firm Pitchbook’s Unicorn Tracker, 37 startups surpassed valuation standards in the first quarter, the highest quarterly figure of the year and 48% higher than the fourth quarter of 2023. His generative AI startups Mistral AI, Celestial AI, Perplexity, and Together are among his new unicorns.
“More than half of new entrants are based in Europe or Asia, continuing a trend that started last year. Previously, U.S.-based companies tended to make up the majority of new unicorns. ” data from PitchBook shows.
The term unicorn typically refers to a startup with a valuation of more than $1 billion. However, PitchBook defines unicorns more narrowly as venture-backed companies that have raised a round of $1 billion or more at a post-money valuation.
More than 580 new unicorn companies were created in 2021 alone, according to PitchBook data. As of March 1, 2024, there are 1,369 unicorn companies operating worldwide.
According to the company’s report, the world’s top unicorn companies in terms of valuation include ByteDance, Ant Group, Stripe, and SpaceX.
The United States is the country with the most active unicorn companies, accounting for 702 companies or 51.2% of the global total as of March 1, 2024. Chinese unicorns are the second most common with his 291 companies, followed by India (65), the UK (49 unicorns) and Germany (25 unicorns).
“Unicorns aren’t necessarily common, but they’re certainly not rare. Roughly 8% of all VC-funded companies worldwide in 2021 were valued at $1 billion or more,” PitchBook said. I am.
“The fact that so many funding rounds now involve multibillion-dollar companies is due in part to the increasing size of VC funds. Several late-stage investors, SoftBank, in particular, has a technology investment strategy centered almost exclusively on backing companies with market capitalizations of $1 billion or more.
“However, due to increased competition, some of these investors are moving into early-stage deals in hopes of building relationships with the unicorn companies of tomorrow.”
According to market research firm Statista, most of the world’s unicorns operate in the software industry.
According to the World Economic Forum, the number of women-owned unicorns increased nearly fivefold, from 18 in 2020 to 83 in 2021. However, women-owned businesses still account for only a “small” share of investments in men-owned businesses (2% as of 2021).
Moonshot News is an independent European news website aimed at all IT, media and advertising professionals, supported by women and focused on promoting diversity, inclusion and gender equality in the industry.
Our mission is to provide the best and unbiased information for all professionals, and to empower women to have a fair voice in the news and in the spotlight.
We create original content, news articles, a calendar of curated industry events, and a database of women in IT, media and advertising associations.
