Unicorn Startup

Unicorn Startup is a term in the investment industry, and defined as a U.S. based tech company started since 2003 and valued at $1 billion or more. The term has been popularized by Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures. When Aileen Lee coined the term in 2013, there were only 39 companies that fit the description. Thus they were considered as rare as unicorns. In 2015 that number has more than doubled.

It is this rapid rise in the number of Unicorn Startups that has led some to speculate that high investor confidence and rapid increase in the number of unicorns may precede bursting of a speculative bubble.

Fortune Magazine now even maintains a list of Unicorn Startups called the “The Unicorn List”. As of 2015 here is the latest list:

  1. Xiaomi
  2. Uber
  3. Airbnb
  4. Palantir
  5. Snapchat
  6. SpaceX
  7. Flipkart
  8. Pinterest
  9. Dropbox
  10. Theranos
  11. Didi Dache-Kuaidi Dache
  12. Spotify
  13. Meituan
  14. Square
  15. WeWork
  16. Snapdeal
  17. Zenefits
  18. Cloudera
  19. Dianping
  20. Stripe
  21. Pure Storage
  22. Fanatics
  23. Atlassian
  24. Jawbone
  25. Machine Zone
  26. Bloom Energy
  27. Moderna Therapeutics
  28. Vancl
  29. Legendary Entertainment
  30. Sogou
  31. Global Fashion Group
  32. Slack
  33. Powa
  34. Lyft
  35. Vice Media
  36. Olacabs
  37. Houzz
  38. Nutanix
  39. Coupang
  40. Magic Leap
  41. Instacart
  42. InMobi
  43. SurveyMonkey
  44. Trendy Group
  45. Mogujie
  46. Domo
  47. Delivery Hero
  48. Prosper Marketplace
  49. Tanium
  50. DocuSign
  51. Intarcia Therapeutics
  52. MongoDB
  53. Adyen
  54. LivingSocial
  55. IronSource
  56. Tango
  57. InsideSales
  58. Oscar
  59. Deem
  60. Koudai Shopping
  61. Jasper Technologies
  62. Sunrun
  63. Evernote
  64. Lynda
  65. Social Finance (SoFi)
  66. Lazada
  67. Actifio
  68. Automattic
  69. AppNexus
  70. Infinidat
  71. Sprinklr
  72. Warby Parker
  73. Proteus Digital Health
  74. Good Technology
  75. Eventbrite
  76. MediaMath
  77. AppDynamics
  78. JustFab
  79. Tinder
  80. Nextdoor
  81. Twilio
  82. Shazam
  83. Lookout
  84. Pluralsight
  85. Qualtrics
  86. Hootsuite
  87. Credit Karma
  88. Razer
  89. Yello Mobile
  90. GrabTaxi
  91. CloudFlare
  92. Kabam
  93. BeiBei
  94. Farfetch
  95. SimpliVity
  96. Funding Circle
  97. Docker
  98. Illumio
  99. Zomato
  100. Quikr

Also a new buzzword, “decacorn,” is now used for companies valued over $10 billion, which includes companies such as Airbnb, Dropbox, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Uber.