Unicorn companies are successful ventures whose overall value exceeds $1 billion. Such companies are privately held and it’s their innovative ideas that make them the center of attention among investors.From time to time, some new companies gain the status of being a unicorn, while some lose their status. Furthermore, there are certain other unicorn companies who either get acquired by some big companies or went public with IPO (Initial Public Offering).
Looking at the previous year, several unicorn companies have lost their status of being a unicorndue to either acquisition or IPO. Many of these startups have proved their worth in recent years and as a result, lots of big businesses have entered the bidding war and successfully acquired them.
Matthew Ledvina is the Managing Director of a Venture Capital Fund based in London. Under his leadership, the VC fund has successfully acquired many fintech companies from different parts of the globe.Being a person who regularly observes the startups and their innovative business ideas, he also tracks the activities of top-level unicorn companies.
Top 10 Unicorn Companies Exited Recently
In the last 12 months, there were nearly 26 companies that have relinquished their unicorn status. Among those companies, the 10 companies with the highest exit valuation are as follows:
Meituan Dianping- $55 Billion
Meituan Dianping is a Chinese company, which offers an e-commerce platform for local food delivery services and retail services. The company came into existence in2010 and offers on-demand delivery service to the customers. Some of its select investors include Tencent Holdings, China Development Bank Capital and IDG capital. Meituan Dianping has acquired the status of the public company in 2018 through Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Xiaomi- $54 Billion
Xiaomi is a China-basedelectronics company that manufactures various electronic devices including mobile phones, smart home devices,andsmart TVs. The company is well-known for its smartphones and operates in multiple countries within Asia.
Pinduoduo- $29.6 Billion
Pinduoduo is another Chinese e-commerce platform famous for its group buying deals, in which multiple users can participate at a time. The company was commenced in 2015 and its investors include Cathaway Innovation, Gaorong Capital, Sequoia Capital China,and Tencent Holdings. At present, the online platform has more than 200 million active users and its daily order volume is second highest within China.The Pinduoduo has initiated IPO in 2018 and is now a publicly listed company.
Spotify – $29.5 Billion
The music streaming platform also went public in 2018 with a significant exit valuation. Talking about the Spotify, it offers on-demand access to nearly 40 million songs and is quite famous among various artists for streaming their tracks. Currently, the company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Flipkart – $20.8 Billion
Flipkart is one of India’s leading online e-commerce websitesandoffers a wide variety of products including books, electronics, clothing, beauty,and personal care. The company owns a couple of subsidiaries including the online apparel selling platforms, Myntra and Jabong.com. In August of 2018, Walmart acquired Flipkart and current shares of the Walmart correspond to 81.3 percent.
Dropbox – $12.6 Billion
The USA-based Dropbox is a file hosting service that provides cloud storage and file synchronization service to both the individual users and businesses. The hosting service was initiated in the year of 2007 by two MIT students. At present, the company is a publicly listed company and its stocks are currently listed on the NASDAQ stock market.
Adyen – $8.36 Billion
Adyen is a payment platform that offers its services to businesses throughout the world to accept different types of payments like e-commerce and point-of-sale. The payment methods accepted by the Adyen’s payment platform include credit cards, debit cards,and online banking.Last year, the company had become public (IPO) and its shares are listed on one of the European stock exchanges.
Github – $7.5 Billion
Acquired by Microsoft, Github offers a software development platform to the users. Some of the features offered by the Github include bug tracking, wikis and task management. The company has its headquarters in San Francisco andoperates on a worldwide level.
Moderna Therapeutics – $7.46 Billion
Focusing on drug discovery and drug development, the Moderna Therapeutics is a biotech company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was founded in 2010 anddeals with the development of synthetic mRNA that can help patients to develop their own therapies.
DocuSign – $4.41 Billion
Specializing in electronic signature technology and digital transaction management services, DocuSign is renowned for its technological innovations. Founded in 2003, the company is currently present in more than 13 locations. In April 2018, DocuSign filed for IPO and became a publicly owned company.Read more from Matthew Ledvina’s on his blog, or follow him on Facebook, Vimeo for more news and updates, subscribe to Matthew Ledvina on YouTube.
