Unicorn, known as a mythical creature, has been one of the concepts we frequently encounter in the entrepreneurship world. In fact, the Unicorn enterprise is one that has reached a billion-dollar valuation. Companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google, which were among the start-up companies in the early ’90s and were established in Silicon Valley, have become known by everyone today, thanks to investors. In the 2000s, these initiatives have grown rapidly, and today the number of billion-dollar enterprises has increased rapidly.
Source: Hurun Research Institute
The chart above shows the distribution of Unicorn enterprises by country. According to the data of 2020, there are 586 Unicorn enterprises in 29 countries and 145 cities. While companies sell software and services at an average rate of 80%, 60% of them have developed products/services for consumers. The total value of all known Unicorn enterprises in the world is 1.9 Trillion US Dollars and is almost equivalent to Italy’s GDP in proportion. The USA and China dominate 80% of the total Unicorn enterprises, with 233 Unicorns in the USA and 227 Unicorns in China. This rate is followed by the United Kingdom with 24 Unicorns and India with 21 Unicorns.
When we take a look at the industry branches of the Unicorn enterprises in the USA, the number of SaaS (Software as a Service), E-Commerce, Artificial Intelligence, and Fintech service enterprises seem to be high.
| Industry | Number of Unicorns | Cumulative Valuation of $ Billion | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SaaS | 37 | 65 |
| 2 | Artificial Intelligence | 35 | 81 |
| 3 | E-Commerce | 23 | 53 |
| 4 | FinTech | 21 | 84 |
| 5 | Sharing Economy | 12 | 56 |
Source: Hurun Research Institute
When we look at the industry branches of Unicorn enterprises in China, we see a high rate of enterprises for E-Commerce, Artificial Intelligence, FinTech, Logistics and Health Technology services.
| Industry | Number of Unicorns | Cumulative Valuation of $ Billion | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | E-Commerce | 39 | 70 |
| 2 | Artificial Intelligence | 21 | 39 |
| 3 | FinTech | 18 | 239 |
| 4 | Logistics | 16 | 68 |
| 5 | Health-Care Technology | 16 | 40 |
Source: Hurun Research Institute
When we look at the number of Unicorn enterprises spread around the world, the distribution is as follows;
| Region | Number of Unicorns | Percentage of Total Value | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asia | 278 | %55 |
| 2 | North America | 236 | %37 |
| 3 | Europe | 58 | %6 |
| 4 | South America | 10 | %1 |
| 5 | Oceania | 2 | %0 |
| 6 | Africa | 1 | %0 |
Source: Hurun Research Institute
While 80% of these enterprises operate in the fields of Software services, E-commerce, Payment technologies, Artificial Intelligence and SaaS, 20% of them operate with physical products such as Consumer goods and Electric Cars.
According to the Global UNICORN Index report, the USA’s Los Angeles and San Francisco region and China’s Beijing and Hangzhou region hold the most valuable 10 Unicorns.
| Name | Valuation (US$bn) | Region | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ant Group | 150 | Hangzhou, China |
| 2 | ByteDance | 80 | Beijing, China |
| 3 | Didi Chuxing | 55 | Beijing, China |
| 4 | Lufax | 38 | Shanghai, China |
| 5 | SpaceX | 36 | Los Angeles, USA |
| 6 | Stripe | 36 | San Francisco, USA |
| 7 | Airbnb | 35 | San Francisco, USA |
| 8 | Kuaishou | 28 | Beijing, China |
| 9 | Cainiao | 27 | Hangzhou, China |
| 10 | Palantir Technologies | 26 | Palo Alto, USA |
Source: Hurun Research Institute *New to the Top 10
It is seen that a large number of companies operate in areas such as payment technologies, online marketplaces, e-cars, fast delivery in the core business areas of Unicorn startups worldwide.
When we look at the investors, who are the major forces behind Unicorn initiatives, it is possible to say that the American, Chinese and Japanese investors are among the strong countries behind Unicorn enterprises. American investment company Sequoia is among the world’s most successful platform for finding and investing in startups with UNICORN potential. This is followed by Tencent, Softbank, IDG, Hillhouse Capital, Tiger Fund and Goldman Sachs.
| Investor | Number of Unicorns | Country | Leading Team | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sequoia | 109 (+17) | USA | Donald Valentine, Neil Shen Nanpeng |
| 2 | Tencent | 52 (+6) | China | Pony Ma Huateng, Lau Sheng Yee, Xi Dan |
| 3 | Softbank | 51 (+9) | Japan | Masayoshi Son, Rajeev Misra |
| 4 | IDG | 41 (+10) | USA | Jim Breyer, Cui Guangfu |
| 5 | Hillhouse Capital | 37 (+21) | China | Zhang Lei |
| 6 | Goldman Sachs | 32 (+8) | USA | David Solomon, John Waldron |
| 7 | Alibaba | 25 (+3) | China | Daniel Zhang Yong, Eddie Wu |
| 8 | Andreessen Horowitz | 24 (+4) | USA | Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz |
| 9 | Accel | 23 (+5) | USA | Philippe Botteri, Andrew Braccia |
Source: Hurun Research Institute
On average, 33 startups worldwide have the title Unicorn within 3 years, and the average age of Unicorn startups is determined to be 9.
Founded in 2010, Peak Games has just achieved great success just in 10 years and became Turkey’s first attempt Unicorn. In addition to the peak games success, Turkey’s leading E-Commerce Platform Trendyol, in 2018 increased its value to over 1.1 billion USD by taking $ 728 million investment from Alibaba. sahibinden.com, another important enterprise from Turkey started to make a name for itself by raising its value to over 2 billion USD as a result of continuous efforts over the years,
In addition to all of these, in the logistics industry, which has an important share in the world economy by reaching a size of 8 -12 Trillion dollars, more than 25 enterprises that achieve digitalization and ensures efficient management of all processes in the supply chain with smart technologies have risen in 2020 and become Unicorn. Companies such as Convoy, Delhivery, Blackbuck, KeepTruckin, Flexport, and Rivigo are some of the unicorns in the field of logistics technologies.
Logistics technologies that are on the rise and will become the Unicorn in the near future are companies such as Next Trucking, FourKites, LoadSmart, Sennder, OnTruck, Kobo360.
The most important feature of these companies is to make manual transactions in logistics and supply chain processes manageable online through web and mobile-based applications. In this way, real-time and location-based transactions such as online load reservation, load bidding, operations management can be performed quickly.
Turkey-based Logistics technology enterprise TIRPORT is a candidate to be a Unicorn in the near future with its innovative approach to the Turkish logistics market where 450.000 FTL transactions are made every day.
Thanks to its enhanced intelligence technology, TIRPORT is a digital platform that combines load owners and drivers through web and mobile-based applications, enables real-time and location-based tracking & monitoring of the load, and supports the entire process with PODs (delivery blood), and enables instant access to all reports. platform.
To access Global Unicorn List 2020 and source click here.
