Coined in 2013, the term ‘unicorn’ in the venture capital industry has come to signify a company valued at $1bn or more. There has been a boom in the number of firms acquiring unicorn status in the past few years, with 276 firms achieving valuations of $1bn or more since 2013. With large amounts of venture capital available to them, many companies are choosing to remain private for longer and later into their growth cycles, pushing valuations higher and driving growth in the number of unicorns. Despite unicorns representing a small fraction of the total number of venture capital-backed companies, they account for a considerable proportion of deal value thanks to their larger funding rounds.
