I World’s Top 5 Unicorns

Startups

World’s Top 5 Unicorns

There are approximately 1,191 unicorns—a privatelyowned firm valued at more than $1 billion—worldwide, worth a collective $3.9 trillion, according to estimates from CB Insights. Here are the world’s top five. Figures are as of October 2022.

1. ByteDance

Valuation: $300 billion Country: China Beijing-based ByteDance, which became a unicorn in 2017, is valued at $140 billion according to its last fundraising round in 2020. However, secondary market transactions in 2022 have reportedly placed a higher valuation of $300 billion. The company is best-known for its social video app TikTok and its local version Douyin. Main investors in the company are Sequoia Capital China, SIG Asia Investment, KKR, and SoftBank Group. ByteDance reportedly more than tripled its operating losses in 2021 to over $7 billion.

ByteDance was cofounded in 2012 by Zhang Yiming, who was China’s second richest billionaire as of November 10, 2022, with a net worth of $49.5 billion. Zhang owns nearly 22% stake of ByteDance. He decided to step down as the company’s CEO in 2021, handing over the position to the company’s cofounder and HR head Liang Rubo who is also a billionaire with a net worth of $2.3 billion as of November 10, 2022.

2. SpaceX

Valuation: $127 billion Country: U.S. SpaceX has quadrupled its value in the past three years, hitting a valuation of $127 billion after raising nearly $2 billion of total funding in 2022. The rocket producer raised $250 million in equity in July after completing a funding round of $1.7 billion in equity in May. SpaceX’s key investors are Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Rothenberg Ventures.

The company was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, who had a net worth of $188.1 billion as of November 10, 2022. It became a unicorn a decade after its inception.

3. SHEIN

Valuation: $100 billion Country: China Chinese fashion and lifestyle e-retailer SHEIN is planning an IPO in the U.S. The potential IPO faces risks of tensions between China and the U.S., while the company is under scrutiny over claims of design theft, labor violations, and the environmental impact of its trendy low-cost apparel. SHEIN’s IPO would be the largest listing since Chinese ride-hailing company DiDi went public in 2021 with a $70 billion valuation. DiDi delisted from the New York Stock Exchange just 11 months later.

Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital China, and Shunwei Capital Partners are investing in the Shenzhenbased company. SHEIN employs nearly 10,000 people and serves more than 150 countries.

4. Stripe

Valuation: $95 billion Country: U.S. and Ireland Stripe, which is dualheadquartered in San Francisco and Dublin, has raised $2.4 billion in total funding to date from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, Khosla Ventures, LowercaseCapital, Allianz X, and Axa, among others. The company became a unicorn in 2014, and reported a 60% increase in payments to $640 billion in 2021.

Irish billionaire brothers John and Patrick Collison established Stripe in 2010. They own 10% each of Stripe. Both co-founders were worth $8.1 billion, as of November 10, 2022. 5. Checkout.com

Valuation: $40 billion Country: U.K.

Checkout.com, a cloudbased payments platform headquartered in the UK, has raised $1.8 billion in total funding since launching operations in 2012. In 2022, it raised $1 billion in a Series D round, boosting the company’s valuation to $40 billion. Its primary investors are Altimeter, Dragoneer, Franklin Templeton, GIC, Insight Partners, the Qatar Investment Authority, Tiger Global, and the Oxford Endowment Fund. The company has 21 offices globally and employs over 1,900 people.

5. Canva

Valuation: $40 billion Country: Australia Canva , a design software maker, reached its current valuation of $40 billion after a $200 million funding round in September 2021, led by T. Rowe Price. Strategic investors include Franklin Templeton, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, Bessemer Venture Partners, Greenoaks Capital, Dragoneer Investments, Blackbird, Felicis, and AirTree Ventures. In October 2022, the company announced that Canva’s monthly users had surpassed 100 million.

Canva launched operations in 2013. Three billionaires cofounded the company—Melanie Perkins, her husband Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams, who signed on as the startup’s third cofounder in June 2012 and now has a 9% stake of Canva. Perkins and Obrecht were worth $6.5 billion each as of November 10, 2022, while Adams’ fortune reached $3.2 billion.