UNICORN INVESTORS
Who’s backing the most Billion-dollar companies?
Visualizing the Top 10 Unicorn investors, based on the total number of current unicorns they have invested in
Unicorns are companies that are valued at more than a billion dollars. Over the past few years, the size of this group has swelled to 650+ companies, as of April 2021. You can find an exhaustive list at CB Insight’s global unicorn tracker. Some 1300 investors back these billion-dollar private companies and while 56% of unicorn investors have only invested in one unicorn company, there are some investors who have pulled away from the group, backing 10, 20, and even 100+ unicorn companies.
Using CB Insights data, we look at which investors have backed the most unicorns (infographic above) and some of the other key highlights. Let’s start off with the top 10 unicorn investors, based on the number of current unicorns they are invested in.
❶ Tiger Global Management (USA, 113 companies)
❷ SoftBank Group (Japan, 69 companies)
❸ Tencent Holdings (China, 58 companies)
❹ Sequoia China (China 52 companies)
❺ Coatue Management (USA, 51 companies)
❻ Sequoia Capital (USA, 47 companies)
❼ DST Global (Russia, 45 companies)
❽ Accel (USA, 44 companies)
❾ Andreessen Horowitz (USA, 43 companies)
❿ Goldman Sachs (USA, 40 companies)
➤ According to the data, New York-based Tiger Global Management leads the investors’ bunch with 113 unicorns backed. It also leads in the total number of deals to unicorns with 180.
➤ Japan-based SoftBank Group is the second-biggest investor in unicorns, backing 69 unicorns, while the Chinese conglomerate Tencent Holdings is not too far behind with 58 unicorns.
➤ Of the top 10 Venture capital firms backing these unicorns, the list is dominated by the US-based firms — six of the ten are from America, two from China, and one each from Japan & Russia.
➤ Although these ten investing giants take the biggest slice of the pie, over 200 institutional investors boast at least 5 unicorns in their portfolios.
➤ Talking about the unicorn portfolio companies, Instacart and UiPath is the most popular among the top 10 unicorn investors with five investors each — the former backed by Tiger Global Management, Coatue Management, Sequoia Capital, DST Global, and Andreessen Horowitz, while the latter got backing from Tiger Global Management, Tencent, Coatue Management, Sequoia Capital, and Accel.
➤ TikTok owner Bytedance is the most valuable unicorn valued at $140 billion. Fintech firm Stripe is the second most valuable unicorn with $95 billion, while Elon Musk’s SpaceX has climbed the ladder to become the third-largest unicorn with a valuation of $74 billion.
➤ Bytedance along with Nubank & Stripe are all backed by 4 of the top 10 unicorn investors. While Grab, Chime & DiDi were backed by three of the top 10 investors.
