The term unicorn describes a rare, mythical creature, but unicorns (privately-held companies worth $1bn or more) are no longer rare. There are currently 826 unicorns, of which 751 are tech unicorns.
Key Highlights
- In early 2020, there was a pandemic-induced slowdown in new tech unicorn births. However, 2021 promises to be a record year, with 228 new tech unicorns created in H1 2021 alone.
- Half of today’s tech unicorns are operating in the ecommerce, cloud, or fintech themes. Another 30% operate in the AI, healthtech, edtech, big data, cybersecurity, digital media, and blockchain themes.
- The US is home to half of the tech unicorns today, while China hosts 22% of them. The US hosts most of the cloud, fintech, healthtech, big data, and cybersecurity unicorns. China leads in AI unicorns.
- Tiger Global is the leading investor in tech unicorns. Sequoia Capital and Softbank follow closely behind. All three have a strong portfolio in top three themes: ecommerce, cloud, and fintech.
Scope
- This report looks at the top 10 themes in which today’s tech unicorns operate.
- It includes a list of all the current unicorns for each theme.
- It also provides details of the current top 10 unicorns operating in each theme, including valuation, funding, country, and description.
- In addition, we include the geographical distribution of the current tech unicorns for each theme, the top investors by number of investments in the current unicorns, the unicorns which we expect to exit the club in the next two years, and a list of start-ups that we expect will soon become unicorns.
Reasons to Buy
- The number of tech unicorns is growing rapidly. This report will help you understand why and identify the themes that are driving this growth.
- It highlights the top 10 tech themes in which today's unicorns operate. These include ecommerce, cloud, fintech, AI, healthtech, edtech, big data, cybersecurity, digital media, and blockchain.
- It includes predictions on which unicorns might IPO soon and analysis of start-ups that we expect to achieve unicorn status.
- In addition, it provides analysis of the leading investors in unicorns, including a look at the themes in which they are investing.
Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- How many tech unicorns exist today?
- Where do today’s tech unicorns live?
- What are the top 10 unicorn themes?
- Who are the top investors in tech unicorns today?
- Glossary
- Further reading
- Our thematic research methodology
Companies Mentioned (Partial List)
A selection of companies mentioned in this report includes, but is not limited to:
- 1Password
- 4Paradigm
- Accel
- Accolade
- Acko
- Acronis
- Adevinta
- Adyen
- Affirm
- Afiniti
- Agora
- Airbnb
- Airtable
- Aiven
- Alchemy
- Allbirds
- Allegro
- Alto Pharmacy
- Amwell
- Andreessen Horowitz
- ApplyBoard
- Arctic Wolf Networks
- Articulate
- Atom Bank
- Attentive
- Aurora
- Avast
- AvidXchange
- Baillie Gifford
- Bain Capital
- Benchling
- Bentley Systems
- Better.com
- Bilibili
- Bird Rides
- BitFury
- Bitmain Technologies
- Bitpanda
- BlaBlaCar
- Blockchain Capital
- Blockchain.com
- BlockFi
- Blockstream
- Bright Health Group
- Buzzfeed
- BYJU's
- Bytedance
- C3.ai
- Caffeine
- Calm
- Cambicon
- Canaan
- Canva
- Carbon Health
- Celonis
- Chainalysis
- Checkout.com
- Chehaoduo
- Chewy
- Chime
- Chindata
- Circle Internet Financial
- Citi
- Classplus
- CleverTap
- Cloudflare
- Cloudwalk
- Clubhouse
- Clutter
- Coatue
- Coinbase
- Coinbase Ventures
- Confluent
- Contentful
- Cootek
- Cortilia
- Corvus Insurance
- Couchbase
- Coupang
- Coursera
- Covariant
- Crowdstrike
- Cuemath
- Cure Fit
- Cybereason
- Cylance
- D1 Capital
- Dadi Cinema
- Dapper Labs
- Darktrace
- Dashlane
- Databricks
- Datadog
- Dataiku
- Dataminr
- DataRobot
- Dave
- Delhivery
- Deliverect
- Deliveroo
- Dell
- Deskera
- Didi Chuxing
- Digital Currency Group
- Discord
- Docusign
- Doordash
- Dragoneer Investment Group
- Dropbox
- DST Global
- Dunamu
- Dunzo
- Duolingo
- EBANX
- Ecom Express
- Epic Games
- Epidemic Sound
- Eruditus Executive Education
- Exabeam
- Faire
- FalconX
- Fanatics
- Farfetch
- Fidelity Investments
- Fresh to Home
- Freshworks
- FTX
- FullStory
- General Atlantic
- General Catalyst
- Genies
- Geodesic Capital
- Getir
- Github
- GitLab
- Global Switch
- Glynn Capital Management
- GoCardless
- Goldman Sachs
- Gong
- GoodRx
- goPuff
- Grab
- Grafana Labs
- Graphcore
- Grayscale
- Guild Education
- Gusto
- GV
- Habana Labs
- HashiCorp
- Health Catalyst
- HighRadius
- Hillhouse Capital Group
- Hinge Health
- Hippo
- Hive
- Hopin
- Horizon Robotics
- Howden Group Holdings
- IDG capital
- Illumio
- Imperfect Foods
- Imply
- Indegene
- Index Ventures
- Infobip
- InMobi
- Insight partners
- Instacart
- Institutional Venture Partners
- Intel
- Ironclad
- JD Health
- JD.com
- Jfrog
- Kaseya
- Klarna
- Klaviyo
- Kleiner Perkins
- Komodo Health
- Kraken
- Kuda
- Kujiale
- Lalamove
- Lambda School
- Lemonade
- Lendingkart
- Lenskart
- Licious
- Lightspeed Venture Partners
- LingoChamp
- LinkDoc Technology
- Livongo
- Lufax
- Lyft
- Lyra Health
- Mamaearth
- Marqeta
- MatchMove Pay
- Matrix Partners
- MEGVII
- Meicai
- Meituan
- Melallia
- MessageBird
- Miaoshou Doctor
- Monzo
- N26
- Navi Technologies
- Neo4j Inc
- Netskope
- Newfront Insurance
- Ninja Van
- Noom
- Nubank
- Nuix
- Nykaa
- Oak HC/FT
- Ola Cabs
- Olive
- Omada Health
- One Concern
- One Medical
- One97 Communications
- OneTrust
- Opendoor
- OrCam technologies
- Oura Health
- OutSystems
- Overtime Sports
- OVH
- Owl Ventures
- OYO Rooms
- PagerDuty
- Pagseguro
- Palatir
- Paradigm
- Patreon
- Pinduoduo
- Pine Labs
- Ping An Good Doctor
- Ping Identity
- Plaid Technologies
- PluralSight
- PointClickCare
- PolicyBazaar
- Practo
- Qutoutiao
- Rappi
- Rapyd
- Rebel Foods
- Redis Labs
- Remitly
- Retool
- Revolut
- Ribbit Capital
- Ridi
- Ripple
- Riskified
- Rivian
- Ro
- Robinhood
- Ruangguru
- SambaNova Systems
- Scale AI
- Seba Bank
- SenseTime
- SentinelOne
- Sequoia Capital
- ServiceTitan
- ShareChat
- Shazam
- SHEIN
- Skydance Media
- SmileDirectClub
- Snowflake
- Snyk
- SoFi
- Softbank
- Songtradr
- SpaceX
- Sportradar
- Spotify
- Sprinklr
- Stripe
- Talkdesk
- Tanium
- telos
- Temasek Holdings
- Tencent Holdings
- Tessian
- The Athletic
- The Hut Group
- Thought Machine
- ThoughtSpot
- Thrive Capital
- Tiger Global Management
- Toast
- TPG Capital
- Tradeshift
- Transmit Security
- Traveloka
- Trax
- Tray.io
- Trulioo
- Uable
- Uber
- Udemy
- Unacademy
- Uptake
- VAST Data
- Vedantu
- Vice Media
- VillageMD
- VIPKid
- Vox Media
- Warby Parker
- We Doctor
- Wise
- Wish
- Xiaohongshu
- Xinchao Media
- Xingsheng Selected
- Xpressbees
- Y Combinator
- Yitu Technology
- Yuanfudao
- Yunfeng Capital
- Zepz
- Zilingo
- ZongMu Technology
- ZoomInfo
- Zscaler
- Zuoyebang
