Unicorn (finance)

Delivery robot company Starship Technologies is an Estonian unicorn.
Self-driving truck manufacturer Einride is a Swedish unicorn.
Hypercar manufacturer and EV technology developer Rimac Automobili is a Croatian unicorn.
Payment provider Adyen is a Dutch decacorn.
Spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX is an American centicorn.

In business, a unicorn is a startup company valued at over US$1 billion which is privately owned and not listed on a share market.[1]: 1270 [2] The term was first published in 2013, coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures.[3][4][5][6]

Many unicorns saw their valuations fall in 2022 as a result of an economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in interest rates causing the cost of borrowing to grow,[7] increased market volatility, stricter regulatory scrutiny and underperformance. CB Insights identified 1,248 unicorns worldwide as of May 2024.[8] Unicorns with over $10 billion in valuation have been designated as "decacorn" companies.[9] For private companies valued over $100 billion, the terms "centicorn" and "hectocorn" have been used.[10]

  1. ^ Hirst, Scott; Kastiel, Kobi (1 May 2019). "Corporate Governance by Index Exclusion". Boston University Law Review. 99 (3): 1229.
  2. ^ Cristea, Ioana A.; Cahan, Eli M.; Ioannidis, John P. A. (April 2019). "Stealth research: Lack of peer‐reviewed evidence to healthcare unicorns". European Journal of Clinical Investigation. 49 (4): e13072. doi:10.1111/eci.13072. ISSN 0014-2972. PMID 30690709.
  3. ^ Rodriguez, Salvador (3 September 2015). "The Real Reason Everyone Calls Billion-Dollar Startups 'Unicorns'". International Business Times. IBT Media Inc. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
  4. ^ Lee, Aileen (2013). "Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning From Billion-Dollar Startups". TechCrunch. Retrieved 26 December 2015. 39 companies belong to what we call the 'Unicorn Club' (by our definition, U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 and valued at over $1 billion by public or private market investors)... about .07 percent of venture-backed consumer and enterprise software startups
  5. ^ Griffith, Erin & Primack, Dan (2015). "The Age of Unicorns". Fortune. Retrieved 26 December 2015. Subtitle: The billion-dollar tech startup was supposed to be the stuff of myth. Now they seem to be... everywhere.
  6. ^ Chohan, Usman (2016). "It's Hard to Hate a Unicorn, Until it Gores You". The Conversation. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
  7. ^ Streitfeld, David (23 January 2023). "For Tech Companies, Years of Easy Money Yield to Hard Times". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  8. ^ "The Complete List Of Unicorn Companies". CB Insights. Retrieved 15 November 2024.
  9. ^ "What Is A Decacorn? The Era Of Decacorn Companies". FourWeekMBA. 25 January 2019. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
  10. ^ Sheetz, Michael (25 January 2019). "Elon Musk's SpaceX hits $100 billion valuation after secondary share sale". CNBC. Retrieved 1 July 2022.