Unicorn (finance)
startup company valued at over $1 billion
In business, a unicorn is a startup company valued at over US$1 billion which is privately owned and therefore its company shares are not publicly listed. The term was coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures.
Many unicorns saw their valuations fall in 2022 as a result of an economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in interest rates causing the cost of borrowing to grow, increased market volatility, stricter regulatory scrutiny and underperformance. CB Insights identified 1,248 unicorns worldwide as of May 2024. Unicorns with over $10 billion in valuation have been designated as "decacorn" companies. For private companies valued over $100 billion, the terms "centicorn" and "hectocorn" have been used. Those worth $1 trillion have been called a "terracorn". Historically, founded in 1946 American Research & Development Corporation (ARDC) is considered the first modern venture capital firm; ARDC's first breakout investment in 1957 of $70,000 in Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) became the defining success of early venture capital, and is considered the first 'unicorn'-level return investment with ARDC's Dorothy Rowe as the lead board member.
History
Aileen Lee originated the term "unicorn" in a 2013 TechCrunch article, "Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning from Billion-Dollar Startups". At the time, 39 companies were identified as unicorns.
The public source identifies “Unicorn (finance)” as startup company valued at over $1 billion. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Unicorn, finance and startup.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20983877. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2013, 2022, 2024 and 1946.
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This entry incorporates text from “Unicorn (finance)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.