- Getting to Know Fantastic Creatures: What Are Unicorn Companies
- Searching for Unicorns: Characteristics of Unicorn Companies
- What Are Some Famous Unicorn Companies in the World
Human resource management, financial accounting, procurement, quality control, sales, legal issues — all of this makes business seem like a boring routine for many. But even in this world, there’s a place for fantastic creatures: unicorns, decacorns, hectocorns, pegasi, and dragons. It might look like an attempt to make the unexciting world of finance a bit more fun, but it’s much more serious than that. These terms help investors understand which startups deserve attention for further research and investment.
Getting to Know Fantastic Creatures: What Are Unicorn Companies
A unicorn company is a startup with a market valuation exceeding $1 billion before going public or being acquired. The term and definition were first introduced by Aileen Lee, the founder and managing partner of Cowboy Ventures — a company that, since its inception, has made 180 investments with an active portfolio averaging $28.8 million in valuation. In 2013, Aileen Lee analyzed data on 60 000 internet companies founded in the U.S. between 2003 and 2013 and found that only 39 of them reached $1 billion or more in valuation, which was just 0.07%.
However, the number of unicorn companies has since grown rapidly. Startups now find it easier to secure significant amounts of private funding in their early stages, allowing them to reach billion-dollar valuations before going public. By December 2024, according to PitchBook data, there are 1422 active unicorn companies with a total venture capital investment of $846.9 billion and a combined valuation of $4.5 trillion.
PitchBook Statistics Screenshot
Given the rapid growth in the number of unicorn companies, they can no longer be considered unique phenomena. This is why the term decacorns was introduced — startups valued at over $10 billion. Between 2007 and 2021, only 84 startups entered this more exclusive club. As of 2024, there are about 50 decacorns worldwide, including Canva, Databricks, and Revolut. Their numbers are gradually increasing, which has created the need for an even more exclusive category — hectocorns — companies valued at over $100 billion. At the time of writing, there are eight hectocorns, including ByteDance and SpaceX.
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Searching for Unicorns: Characteristics of Unicorn Companies
While decacorns and hectocorns are rarer "creatures", the story began with unicorns, so let's continue exploring them. First, we need to understand what unites unicorn companies.
Returning to the definition at the beginning of the article, the key feature is, of course, a market valuation exceeding $1 billion, typically achieved through venture capital investments at early stages of development. However, there are other important characteristics of unicorn companies:
- Private Status. Most unicorns are privately held companies that have not yet entered public stock markets.
- Technological Focus. According to PitchBook data, most unicorns (913) operate in the field of Information Technology (IT), followed by B2C (317), healthcare (223), B2B (219), and finance (124).
- Innovation. Unicorns introduce breakthrough technologies or new business models. For example, Uber revolutionized the transportation sector, and Slack transformed corporate communication within IT companies.
- Artificial Intelligence. Today, most unicorns are involved in artificial intelligence, leveraging its capabilities to create new products or enhance existing ones. For example, the Ukrainian unicorn Grammarly launched GrammarlyGO in 2020 — a new AI-based product that improves text quality.
- Global Ambitions. Many unicorns, especially those outside the U.S. and Asia, aim to solve global problems and, as a result, expand to international markets.
There are also unicorn companies in our industry, including DigitalOcean, Squarespace, Shopify, Wix, Cloudflare, Vultr. However, none of them is a classic hosting provider — hosting services and server rental in these cases are part of a large-scale set of innovative tools. The mentioned companies offer development environments, systems for protecting and optimizing website operations, cloud and SaaS solutions; they work as platforms for creating websites. It is this approach to business that contributes to scaling and obtaining unicorn status — uniqueness, innovation, simplicity for the end user and a wide range of related products that help to perform a maximum of tasks within a single service.
Considering the rapid development of technology, the main characteristics of unicorn companies today include technological orientation, the pursuit of unique technological solutions, and the active use of artificial intelligence. Ukrainian entrepreneurs, in particular, should focus on international markets. Well-known companies like Grammarly and GitLab have gained most of their value thanks to global demand for their products. Moreover, venture funds are ready to invest in businesses capable of solving universal problems and covering large markets.
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What Are Some Famous Unicorn Companies in the World
When analyzing information about famous unicorn companies, names like ByteDance, SpaceX, and OpenAI often come up. However, with valuations exceeding $100 billion, they’ve already secured their place in the prestigious hectocorn club. Similarly, companies like Canva, Discord, Ripple, Bolt, Notion, and Tipalti frequently appear in rankings, but their valuations have surpassed $10 billion, granting them decacorn status. Even the renowned Ukrainian service Grammarly, which provides grammar and style checks along with suggestions, achieved decacorn status back in 2021.
List of Unicorn Companies on CB Insights
While the companies mentioned above were once unicorns, we want to introduce you to those still holding this status at the time of writing. There are thousands of such projects, so we analyzed The Complete List of Unicorn Companies and selected some of the most notable unicorns that may be familiar to Ukrainians or were created by Ukrainians:
GitLab — $8 Billion
A popular DevOps platform for source code management and developer collaboration, created in Ukraine by Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Valery Sizov. GitLab even reached decacorn status, achieving a market capitalization of $18.92 billion on November 8, 2021. However, its valuation has since significantly declined, and as of late 2024, it remains a unicorn.
Writer Inc. — $1.9 Billion
Specializing in AI solutions for enterprises, Writer offers a comprehensive generative platform with custom language models and business tools. It enhances productivity and efficiently automates complex workflows. Writer became one of the newest unicorns in November 2024, backed by Salesforce Ventures, Adobe Ventures, and other prominent investors.
BlaBlaCar — $1.6 Billion
A French online carpooling platform that connects drivers with passengers. BlaBlaCar entered the Ukrainian market in 2014 and, as of October 2022, had 8 million users in Ukraine.
DistroKid — $1.3 Billion
An American service for music distribution. Users can upload tracks (EPs, albums), add cover art and descriptions, select platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, and the system automatically distributes the music to these platforms. In 2022, this unicorn launched DistroVid, a service for music videos.
AirSlate — $1.25 Billion
A company developing solutions for automating business processes, founded in Boston in 2008 by Ukrainian entrepreneur Vadym Yasinovskyi. Despite having a large office in Kyiv (800 employees), AirSlate continued operations in St. Petersburg after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Creatio — $1.2 Billion
A platform for business process automation using no-code approaches, founded in 2011 by Kateryna Kostereva. Initially focused on customer relationship management (CRM) systems, it later combined these with business process management (BPM) functions. In 2024, Creatio became the first Ukrainian unicorn founded by a woman.
People.ai — $1.1 Billion
Uses artificial intelligence to improve sales productivity and analyze customer interactions. In 2021, under the leadership of Oleg Rogynskyi, People.ai closed its Series D funding round, becoming a new Ukrainian unicorn.
Now you know that even the financial world has its fair share of magical creatures. With each passing year, the number of unicorn companies grows, and Ukrainian representatives are increasingly part of this list. Most Ukrainian unicorns operate in the tech sector, enabling them to integrate into the global economy and attract international investments, even in the face of a full-scale invasion.
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