In light of WeWork’s monstrous $4.4 billion funding round and the release of our annual Unicorn Report, we’ve put together a ranking of current US-based VC-backed unicorns by capital raised in the last 18 months. In that time frame, the top three companies, Uber, WeWork and Airbnb—which are, unsurprisingly, the three most valuable startups in the US—have procured the lion’s share of VC dollars, a total of nearly $14 billion.
So far this year, US companies with a $1 billion or greater valuation have been responsible for more than 20% of deal value but only 1% of the total number of completed financings, according to the PitchBook Platform. It's a staggering statistic, but given some of the recent deals among tech's heavy hitters—Airbnb's $1 billion round in March or Lyft's $600 million financing in May—it makes sense.
Still, this year will likely fail to reach 100 total unicorn financing rounds—the second consecutive year to miss the mark after a run of five between 2011 and 2015. Companies are taking longer to reach unicorn status, and the average age of unicorns since founding has reached almost nine years, while the median age has moved to about eight.
Here's a look at just how much influence unicorn deals have over aggregate industry figures:
Read the full 2017 Unicorn Report here. Related content: Unicorn Class of 2017
Article by Kate Clark, PitchBook
