Ten years ago today, Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures He wrote a column for TechCrunch that brought the term “unicorn” to the world.
Once defined as “US-based software companies founded in 2003 and valued at more than $1 billion by public or private market investors,” the term has since expanded to encompass all newly valued private companies. in a billion dollars or more.
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Lee’s column helped the world categorize startups in a new way, but it was also a sign of the times to come, as the world soon saw a massive acceleration in the number of billion-dollar startups rooted in business hubs. global technologies. In a follow-up to his 2015 column, Lee noted that since his original column, his team found a “staggering 115% increase” in the number of unicorns with a total value of “$327 billion, 2.4 times our latest analysis.” discounting Facebook for obvious reasons.
Little did we know then what awaited us. The pace at which startups reached valuations of $1 billion or more accelerated throughout 2020 and 2021, and shortly thereafter, the number of companies in the global unicorn club surpassed the 1,000 mark. Today, Crunchy Base Counts 1,483 unicorns that have collectively raised $905 billion and are worth $5 trillion combined, while CB Insights counts 1,220 global unicorns which together are worth a total of 3.83 billion dollars.
