Context
Recently, the Hurun Research Institute released the Global Unicorn Index 2021, a ranking of the world’s start-ups founded in the 2000s, worth at least a billion dollars and not yet listed on a public exchange.
- Hurun Research has been tracking unicorns in China since 2017 and the world since 2019.
Key-findings of the Index
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A unicorn is a term used in the venture capital industry to describe a startup company with a value of over $1 billion.
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- Hurun Research founded 1,058 unicorns in the world, based in 42 countries and 221 cities.
- There were 673 ‘new faces’ and 201 drop-offs. Of the drop-offs, 28% or 162 were ‘promoted’ out of the unicorn list, after going public or being acquired, whilst 7% or 39 were ‘demoted’, after their valuations dropped below US$1bn.
- Of last year’s list, 175 unicorns saw their valuations rise, whilst 13 saw their valuations drop.
- Mexico, Netherland, Bahamas, Belgium, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway, Senegal, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam are among the thirteen countries that have produced unicorns for the first time.
India and Unicorns
- India has a total of 54 Unicorns. It is ranked third in the world, after the United States and China.
- India has added 33 Unicorns in a single year. This has helped India overtake the UK in the number of Unicorns.
- However, the US and China are way ahead of India in the number of Unicorns.
- The US has added 254 unicorns and now totals 487 companies, while China added 74 to take its tally to 301 Unicorns. These top-two occupants are home to 74% of the unicorn universe.
- ByteDance is the most valuable company in the world, valued at $350 billion, followed by Ant Group at $150 billion, SpaceX at $100 billion.
- In the US, SaaS and Fintech made up a third of their unicorns, whilst in China, E-commerce, HealthTech and AI made up a third.
