Unicorns refer to privately held startups valued at over $1 billion. There are currently 279 unicorns globally as of March 2018, with the largest being Uber, Xiaomi, Airbnb, and Pinterest. Unicorns are characterized by disruptive innovation, being first movers, technology paradigm shifts, consumer focus, and remaining private companies. They grow through word of mouth, pursuing fast growth, rising technology trends, building super platforms, and operating in a friendly fundraising environment. While China has more total unicorn valuation than the US, India faces challenges in retaining valuations and key personnel for its unicorns.

1. UNICORN
E M E R G E N C E I N I N D I A

2. MEANING
• Privately held STARTUP
• Valued at over $1 BILLION
• Term coined by AILEEN LEE
• DECACORN, over $10 billion.
• HECTACORN, over $100 billion.
• 279 Unicorns as of March, 2018.
• Largest being UBER, XIAOMI, AIRBNB, PINTEREST. Aileen Lee
• Valued by Venture Capital Firm or a much larger company during BUY-OUT.

5. WHAT MAKES A UNICORN?
• Disruptive Innovation
• First Movers Advantages
• Technology Paradigm shift Capitalization
• Consumer Focused
• Private company

7. HOW A UNICORN GROWS?
• Word of mouth
• Start up mantra : “Get big fast”
• Rise in technology
• Super platforms
• Super friendly fundraising environment.
• Nontraditional investors are taking part.

8. SOONICORNS (SOON TO BE UNICORNS)

10. COMPARING MAJOR UNICORNS
(US V/S CHINA)
• China has the largest total valuation of US$37.3B globally, higher than the US$34B total
valuation of American unicorns.
• Yu’ebao, a personal finance service from Ant Financial, reached $165.6B in AUM in April
2017. It surpassed JPMorgan Chase to become the world’s largest money market fund.
• In 2011, Alibaba Group received the highest valuation of US$32B.
• In 2013, Alibaba’s retail e-commerce transactions reached US$248B, larger than the
combined total of eBay and Amazon. By going public in 2014, it became the largest global
IPO having a valuation of US$167.6B
• In 2016, China’s mobile payment transactions surpassed US$8.5 trillion, 70x more than the
US.
• In 2015, China’s online P2P lending industry was roughly worth US$66.9 billion, 4x
higher than the US.

11. SECTOR-WISE CLASSIFICATION

12. INDIA FOR UNICORN : CHALLENGES
• Devaluations: Zomato, Flipkart
• Operational Models : Deep Discounts
• Consolidation : Myntra, TaxiforSure
• Key Personnel exits
• Competitions
• Valuation

13. MAGICAL FACTS ABOUT UNICORN
• Ninety-four percent of the unicorn founders are men. Six percent are women.
• Stanford, Harvard and University of California are the top three alma maters of unicorn
founders.
• California is home to the most unicorn companies
• Sixty-seven percent of the companies were launched by co-founders.
• Sixty percent of the founders who reached the billion-dollar mark are first time founders
• Twenty-nine companies holding their 10-year anniversaries this year are unicorns.
• Thirty-five of the companies on the list were four years old when they achieved unicorn
status.
• There is only one company in the top 10 that was launched in the 1990s: Alibaba, at
number five, started in 1999.
• One-hundred-fifty companies, the majority of the list, are valued between $1 billion and $2

14. T H A N K Y O U