A $1 billion valuation was until recently a significant badge of honor for a technology company, marking it as an unusually successful outlier. Now, though, as membership of the club has swollen to as many as 200 globally (with an aggregate valuation in excess of $600 billion), the “unicorn” epithet given to these billion-dollar companies on account of their rarity has become less apt and attracted considerable skepticism as to whether they can justify their sky-high price tags.
