Why are startups worth over 1 billion dollars called unicorns?

A US venture investor coined it in 2013, to make the point that such companies were rare. Billion-dollar private companies have become far more common since, hence the bigger labels, decacorn and hectocorn.

How many unicorn companies are there?

Depends on the source. Crunchbase counted 1,881 unicorns on 22 September 2026, CB Insights listed 1,404 when accessed on 25 September 2026, and Dealroom counted 3,977 unicorn-tier companies in September 2026. The guide to unicorn counts explains why the numbers differ.

What are examples of unicorn companies?

The 2026 leaders include Anthropic, at about 965 billion dollars (May 2026), OpenAI, ByteDance, Databricks, at 190 billion dollars (August 2026), and Stripe, at about 159 billion dollars (February 2026). Each valuation, with date and source, is in the unicorn tracker.

Can you buy shares of a unicorn company?

Not on a stock exchange, as long as it is private. Qualified investors can get exposure through secondary purchases of existing shares, SPVs, funds or tender offers, and every one of them needs company approval and runs into transfer restrictions. The Unicorn Academy pre-IPO course walks through these routes step by step.

What is the definition of a unicorn company?

A private startup valued at 1 billion US dollars or more, based on its latest funding round or a reported share sale. It stops being a private unicorn when it lists or is acquired.

What is the difference between a unicorn, a decacorn and a hectocorn?

Valuation thresholds for private companies. A unicorn is worth more than 1 billion dollars, a decacorn more than 10 billion, a hectocorn more than 100 billion. The bigger two are subsets of the first.

What happens to a unicorn at its IPO?

Its shares start trading at a market price, which may sit above or below the last private valuation. SpaceX listed on Nasdaq on 12 June 2026 at about 1.77 trillion dollars; Shein listed in Hong Kong on 1 September 2026 at about 27 billion dollars, a fraction of its 2022 private valuation. Pre-IPO holders are usually locked up for several months after listing.

Does unicorn status make a company a safe investment?

No. The label only tells you that investors agreed on a valuation of at least one billion dollars on a certain date. A unicorn can raise money at a lower valuation, list below its private mark or fail outright, and shares bought before an IPO have no public market. Investing involves the risk of losing capital. See the risks of pre-IPO investing.

What is a unicorn company?

By Unicorn Private Research. Published 26 September 2026, last updated 20 October 2026.

What is a unicorn company? A private startup valued at 1 billion US dollars or more, based on its latest funding round or a reported sale of its shares. The label is about valuation only. It says nothing about profits, sector or quality, and a company stops being a private unicorn once it lists on a stock exchange or gets acquired. Above 10 billion dollars it becomes a decacorn, above 100 billion dollars a hectocorn.

Key points

A private company valued above one billion dollars.
The founder of the venture firm Cowboy Ventures popularised the term in 2013.
Decacorns start at 10 billion dollars, hectocorns at 100 billion dollars.
Nobody agrees on the count: 1,404 at CB Insights (accessed 25 September 2026), 3,977 unicorn-tier companies at Dealroom (September 2026).
A handful of private companies now carry reported valuations above 100 billion dollars. Anthropic sits at 965 billion dollars (28 May 2026).
The valuation is a price negotiated in a funding round, not a market price. An IPO can land above it or below it.

Unicorn meaning in finance. A private startup valued at one billion dollars or more in a funding round or a reported transaction. The word marks a valuation threshold. It is not a sector and not a seal of quality. Once the company lists on a stock exchange it is no longer a private unicorn, which is what happened to SpaceX on Nasdaq in June 2026.

In practice a unicorn is a private company, usually a tech startup, worth more than one billion dollars on paper. The venture investor who founded Cowboy Ventures popularised the term in 2013, when companies like that were genuinely rare.

Unicorn, decacorn and hectocorn

Term	Definition
Unicorn	A privately held company valued above 1 billion dollars.
Decacorn	A private company valued above 10 billion dollars.
Hectocorn	A private company valued above 100 billion dollars.

Decacorns and hectocorns are simply bigger unicorns. The number behind each label is usually the post-money valuation of the latest priced round, meaning the price paid per preferred share multiplied by every share outstanding. Preferred shares carry rights that common shares do not, so that headline figure is not what every share would fetch, and it is not a market capitalisation either. The method, and where it breaks down, is covered in how to value a private unicorn.

How many unicorns are there?

It depends who is counting and how. Crunchbase had 1,881 unicorns on 22 September 2026. CB Insights listed 1,404 when accessed on 25 September 2026. Dealroom counted 3,977 unicorn-tier companies in September 2026. Our guide to unicorn counts puts them side by side and explains the gaps.

Why unicorns stay private longer

Private money is plentiful, the secondary market has grown up, and a public listing is expensive and complicated. So many companies simply put the IPO off. The result: more of their growth goes to private investors before the shares ever reach the public market.

How large the biggest have become

Among the reported valuations of 2026: Anthropic at about 965 billion dollars (May 2026) and OpenAI at about 852 billion dollars (March 2026), although sources disagree on OpenAI's number. SpaceX listed in June 2026 at a valuation of about 1.77 trillion dollars. The unicorn tracker has figures and dates.

Some unicorns of 2026, each with its own profile on this site:

Anthropic: 965 billion dollars, set by the Series H round announced on 28 May 2026.
OpenAI: about 852 billion dollars in March 2026. TechCrunch reported talks at about 1.4 trillion dollars on 29 September 2026; the company has not confirmed them.
Databricks: 190 billion dollars, after a 5 billion dollar round reported by CNBC on 13 August 2026.
Stripe: about 159 billion dollars, set by a tender offer in February 2026, according to CNBC.
Kraken: parent company Payward was valued at 21 billion dollars through a Nasdaq investment, CoinDesk reported on 10 September 2026.

Our company profiles cover 18 large private companies, ByteDance, Revolut, Anduril, Canva and Ramp among them.

Unicorn IPOs: what happens when a unicorn goes public

The IPO is where a private valuation finally meets a market price. They do not always agree.

SpaceX priced at 135 dollars a share on 11 June 2026 and started trading on Nasdaq as SPCX on 12 June, at a valuation of about 1.77 trillion dollars (SpaceX IPO guide).
Shein listed in Hong Kong on 1 September 2026 at about 27 billion dollars, a fraction of its 2022 private valuation. The shares fell 9% on day one, according to CNBC.
Anthropic filed a confidential draft registration statement on 1 June 2026, according to Yahoo Finance. The listing was expected in October and has reportedly slipped to November 2026; the company has not announced a date.
Kraken announced a confidential IPO filing on 19 November 2025. On 2 September 2026 CoinDesk reported that its parent had pushed the listing back to the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest.
OpenAI's chief executive said in September 2026 that the company would not go public in 2026, according to Fortune.

And the listing date is not the selling date. Pre-IPO holders usually sit through a lock-up of several months first.

How investors gain exposure

Before an IPO, the ways in are secondary purchases of existing shares, SPVs, funds, or a direct seat in a funding round, and each comes with its own constraints. Who can use which route, and what it costs, is in what is pre-IPO investing; eligibility country by country is in the guide for qualified investors in Switzerland, the EU and the US.

The published data says later-stage companies fail less often than early-stage start-ups. PitchBook found failure rates falling from 23.6% at Series A to 10.8% at Series E, on data as of 5 August 2021. That data is old, and it only counts companies that already survived the earlier rounds. A unicorn can still be a bad investment because of the entry price, the exit date or dilution. The full comparison is in how pre-IPO risk compares with venture capital risk.

Frequently asked questions

Why are startups worth over 1 billion dollars called unicorns?: A US venture investor coined it in 2013, to make the point that such companies were rare. Billion-dollar private companies have become far more common since, hence the bigger labels, decacorn and hectocorn.
How many unicorn companies are there?: Depends on the source. Crunchbase counted 1,881 unicorns on 22 September 2026, CB Insights listed 1,404 when accessed on 25 September 2026, and Dealroom counted 3,977 unicorn-tier companies in September 2026. The guide to unicorn counts explains why the numbers differ.
What are examples of unicorn companies?: The 2026 leaders include Anthropic, at about 965 billion dollars (May 2026), OpenAI, ByteDance, Databricks, at 190 billion dollars (August 2026), and Stripe, at about 159 billion dollars (February 2026). Each valuation, with date and source, is in the unicorn tracker.
Can you buy shares of a unicorn company?: Not on a stock exchange, as long as it is private. Qualified investors can get exposure through secondary purchases of existing shares, SPVs, funds or tender offers, and every one of them needs company approval and runs into transfer restrictions. The Unicorn Academy pre-IPO course walks through these routes step by step.
What is the definition of a unicorn company?: A private startup valued at 1 billion US dollars or more, based on its latest funding round or a reported share sale. It stops being a private unicorn when it lists or is acquired.
What is the difference between a unicorn, a decacorn and a hectocorn?: Valuation thresholds for private companies. A unicorn is worth more than 1 billion dollars, a decacorn more than 10 billion, a hectocorn more than 100 billion. The bigger two are subsets of the first.
What happens to a unicorn at its IPO?: Its shares start trading at a market price, which may sit above or below the last private valuation. SpaceX listed on Nasdaq on 12 June 2026 at about 1.77 trillion dollars; Shein listed in Hong Kong on 1 September 2026 at about 27 billion dollars, a fraction of its 2022 private valuation. Pre-IPO holders are usually locked up for several months after listing.
Does unicorn status make a company a safe investment?: No. The label only tells you that investors agreed on a valuation of at least one billion dollars on a certain date. A unicorn can raise money at a lower valuation, list below its private mark or fail outright, and shares bought before an IPO have no public market. Investing involves the risk of losing capital. See the risks of pre-IPO investing.

Related guides

About the publisher

This guide is published by Unicorn Private Research, the research arm of Unicorn Private LLC, a Delaware private equity firm that acquires secondary stakes in late-stage private technology companies before their IPO. The firm invests only in established companies already valued above one billion dollars, not in early-stage start-ups, and its founders have been active in private equity and startup investing since 2005.

Unicorn Private is the first firm in the pre-IPO secondary market to create an open research centre in sixteen languages: guides, a tracker of the largest private technology companies, a glossary, and a frequently asked questions section, open to every reader, with every figure carrying a date and a link to a public source.

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Che cos'è una società unicorno? (Italiano)
Qu'est-ce qu'une licorne ? (Français)
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