Strategically positioned, South Florida is a growing hub for startups and tech companies where unicorns are called, at least by one of the accelator companies in the area, (Photo by Gianrigo MARLETTA / AFP)
- The number of tech unicorns with a valuation of over US$1 billion has reached 936, and a combined value totalling US$3.049 billion.
- The US is home to most unicorn startups operating within the cloud, fintech, health tech, big data, and cybersecurity.
- It’s estimated that by 2026 the global SCM market size will grow to US$41.7 billion.
The US is home to most unicorn startups operating within the cloud, fintech, health tech, big data, and cybersecurity. 70% of cloud unicorns are based globally, 46% of fintech unicorns, and 68% of health tech unicorns. Over 12,000 fintech startups and 5,779 new tech startups are founded in the United States alone. And those numbers are not slowing down any time soon.
The folks at CB Insights had listed all the unicorns (private companies worth $1 billion) in tech and placed them on a scatterplot according to their industry. The number of tech unicorns with a valuation of over US$1 billion has reached 936, and a combined value totaling US$3.049 billion, according to the latest global unicorn club.
GlobalData’s latest thematic report, Tech Unicorns – Top 10 Themes in 2021, showed that US tech unicorns become even stronger after the COVID19 pandemic.
Data analytics startups
Data analytics is one of the most sought-after skills worldwide. The demand for data analysts and scientists will only increase in the years to come, as companies are looking for ways to understand their customers better, optimize their operations and boost sales through new insights.
In the next five years, analytics will be a driving force behind many unicorn startups. Among the top unicorn startups now are Cohesity, with a valuation of US$3.70 billion, Dataminr valued at US$1.06 billion and Confluent at US$$4.50billion.
Fintech unicorn startups
The financial industry was one of the first industries affected by technological development and globalization.
We’ve seen a boom in fintech companies in the past few years and is the most highly represented category, accounting for slightly over a fifth of all unicorns (20.4%). As more people from emerging markets gain access to banking services and technologies, several emerging trends will shape the future of this sector.
According to Accenture, 88% of institutions will lose a part of their business to standalone fintech companies over the next five years. The study also discovered that 64% of financial services leaders believe that the most critical factor in establishing market-leading innovation is creating and adopting new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), or blockchain.
An example of this is Stripe, which has gone from a small startup to one of the fastest-growing fintech companies globally. It has a valuation of US$95 billion. In December 2021, Stripe acquired the application software OpenChannel to help them with ecosystem integrations.
Pleo is another company that has surpassed the mythical figure of US$1 billion and is Denmark’s first fintech unicorn. Pleo is a B2B-focused outfit that offers corporate expense management software with linked ‘smart’ cards.
Supply chain management startups
While the disruptions in retail and manufacturing industries have been making headlines, other sectors that are highly valued but traditionally not considered as sexy and innovative, like transportation, logistics, and supply chain management (SCM) have also been seeing a lot of disruption.
In fact, business models for many companies are being disrupted by the proliferation of technologies that enable new ways to do business. As a result, the supply chain industry is packed with unicorns.
It’s estimated that by 2026 the global SCM market size will grow to US$41.7 billion. Some of the SCM unicorn startups are Convoy with a valuation of US$$2.75 billion and Flexport at US$3.20 billion.
6 March 2024