The Hurun Research Institute on Tuesday released the Hurun Global Unicorn List 2020, a ranking of the world’s billion-dollar tech start-ups founded in the 2000s and not yet listed on a public exchange. This is the second year of the list and valuations are a snapshot of March 31, 2020.

Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher, said that his team has found 586 unicorns in the world. These young companies, only nine years old on average, are the world’s most exciting start-ups, leading a new generation of disruptive technology and attracting the world’s top young talent.

US pips China to it, but only just

The unicorns are based in only 29 countries around the world, spread around 145 cities. The US pipped China to lead by 233 versus 227. The UK was miles away at third with 24, followed by India with 21. The dominance of the US and China is such that they each have more than four times the number of unicorns in Europe, which today has 58 unicorns, said Hoogewerf.

Of the 61 unicorns founded by Indians, a massive two thirds are based outside, predominately Silicon Valley, whilst only 21 are based in India. The Indian founders of the 40 unicorns outside of India deserve to be recognised in much the same way as Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, an inspiration to many young Indian entrepreneurs, Hoogewerf said.

photo2020-08-0512-58-57jpg
 

photo2020-08-0512-59-01jpg
 

Elon Musk sparkles

The US and China continue to dominate with 80 per cent of the world’s known unicorns, despite representing only 40 per cent of the world’s GDP and a quarter of the world’s population. The rest of the world needs to wake up to providing an ecosystem that allows unicorns to flourish, said Hoogewerf.

“Just look at Elon Musk’s SpaceX – valued at $36 billion and fifth on the Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2020 – which caught the imagination of the world by delivering two astronauts to the International Space Station. Others that have made headlines recently include Beijing-based ByteDance, which is seeing its massively popular short video app TikTok come under threat from both the US and Indian governments, as well as China fintech Ant Financial, which is reportedly looking at a whopping $200 billion IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong.”

thumbnailunicorn3jpg
 

World investor leaders

Italy, Russia, Mexico and Holland are the largest countries in the world by GDP without a unicorn. Only 29 countries have unicorns, meaning that the other 170 or more countries in the world are without a single unicorn, led by 10 of the world’s 25 largest economies.

Sequoia is the world’s most successful investment platform at finding and investing into unicorns, investing into one in five of the world’s known unicorns, followed by Tencent, Softbank, IDG and Hillhouse Capital, Tiger Fund and Goldman Sachs. Unicorns are supposed to be hard to find, but investors like Sequoia, Tencent, Softbank and IDG make it look easy, Hoogewerf said.

India unicorn toppers

India is fourth on the list with 21 unicorns, led by payments solutions platform One97 Communications (of fintech-fame Paytm at $16 billion); travel-stay finder OYO Rooms ($8 billion); online educator BYJU’s ($8 billion), and cab aggregator Ola Cabs ($6 bilion).

At least 36 Indian-origin unicorn founders graduated from the IITs, with IIT-Delhi the most preferred institute. Only five founders of India’s unicorns are female, with the remaining 104 males. US-based fintech company Robinhood, co-founded by Baiju Bhatt, is most valuable unicorn founded by an Indian origin entrepreneur abroad.

Super wealth creators

Anas Rahman Junaid, Hurun Report India MD and Chief Researcher, said that India officially has 61 unicorns, but only 21 are headquartered in India, with the remaining started up by Indians overseas. “We hope Hurun Global Unicorn Report 2020 would inspire entrepreneurs in India to create billion-dollar startups, serving the Prime Minister’s call for ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’,” Junaid said.

According to Junaid, these unicorn founders are super wealth creators and some of the founders are expanding their horizon. For instance, Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath bootstrapped Zerodha to a unicorn; they are now investing into start-ups through their fintech incubator Rainmatter and are now managing wealth using their industry knowledge through their wealth management arm, True Beacon.

Softbank, leader here and away

Bengaluru-based fintech unicorn Zerodha is India’s largest stockbroker. Softbank takes the lead in investing into Indian unicorns, having invested in nearly half of those. It is also the world’s most successful investor into unicorns, being a key investor in one in every five.

Others include Tencent, Softbank, Tiger, IDG, Goldman Sachs, and Alibaba. The total value of all known unicorns in India is $73.2 billion. Total value of unicorns founded overseas by Indians sums up to $99.6 billion.

Hurun Research methodology

Hurun defines a ‘unicorn’ as a start-up founded in the 2000s that has reached a valuation of $1 billion, but not yet listed on a public exchange. Valuing unicorns can be tricky. The very nature of these super-fast growing companies makes valuations hard to pin down.

To ensure consistency of the valuations, the Hurun research team used the most recent valuation based on a sizeable round. Small pieces of companies are sometimes sold, theoretically changing the value of the whole business. It used databases that specialise in recording rounds of investments by the professional investment world, cross-checking the data with some of the world’s top investment houses, industry experts, journalists and media sources.

Unicorns can drop out from the list either by going public (IPO), being acquired by another company, or dropping in valuation. Hurun Research has been tracking China’s top unicorns for the past three years, starting with the Hurun China Unicorn Index.

comment COMMENT NOW