COVID-19 has forced companies across all industries to accelerate the adoption of various disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, cybersecurity, robotics, fintech, and Internet of Things (IoT) to stay competitive in the new business environment. As a result, investors are keen to place bets on startups that are disrupting industries and, in the process, achieving unicorn status. Against this backdrop, out of the 524 startups that turned unicorns in 2021, GlobalData’s Unicorn Prediction Model correctly predicted 210 unicorns.

Apoorva Bajaj, Practice Head of Financial Markets at GlobalData, says: “When it comes to unicorn conversion forecasting, GlobalData’s hit rate has been reasonably high. GlobalData’s Unicorn Prediction Model helps investors to be in a better position to place the right bets and capitalize on the budding startups.”

GlobalData’s latest report, ‘Spotting Future Unicorns: Predicting Startup Success using GlobalData’s AI model’, finds a 3x spike in unicorn births globally from 44 in Q4 2020 to 141 in Q4 2021.

Bajaj continues: “The COVID-19 pandemic caused a slowdown in unicorn creation in early 2020, but 2021 is the strongest year with increasing number of high-value unicorns.

“The US, which is the world’s biggest hub for unicorns, is expected to continue to dominate as a major hub of predicted unicorns. China is expected to witness slowdown in unicorn births, mainly due to fall in FDI confidence index, and fall in optimism in economy amidst the US-China trade tensions. However, the UK, India and Germany are expected to witness significant growth.”

Some of the startups predicted to be unicorns by the GlobalData’s Unicorn Prediction Model and subsequently emerged as ones include People.ai, Rec Room, JumpCloud, Inc., HoneyBook, Inc., GrubMarket Inc., and ChargeBee Inc.

GlobalData predicted People.ai to be a unicorn in May 2019 and the company turned out to be one with a valuation of $1.1bn in August 2021.  People.ai harnesses AI to deliver sales performance analytics, one-on-one feedback, and pipeline reviews for companies’ sales teams.

Rec Room was predicted to be a unicorn in December 2020 and the company turned out with a valuation of $1.3bn in March 2021, making it the first official software unicorn to emerge from the VR industry.

JumpCloud, Inc. was predicted to be a unicorn in May 2019 and the company turned out to be one with a valuation of $1.3bn in September 2021.

Israeli fintech company HoneyBook, Inc. was predicted to be a unicorn in March 2019 and the company reached the valuation of $1.1bn after the completion of a $155m series D equity round in May 2021. HoneyBook develops an online business and financial management platform that allows small business owners to streamline all aspects of their business, automating workflows, contracts, and invoices.

GrubMarket Inc. was predicted to be a unicorn in July 2018 and the company reached the valuation of over $1bn after picking up $120m in a Series E round of funding. GrubMarket provides software and services that help link up and manage relationships between food suppliers and their customers.

ChargeBee Inc. was predicted to be a unicorn in March 2018 and the company reached a valuation of $1.4bn after it raised $125m in Series G funding in April 2021. Chargebee claims to be India’s 11th unicorn.

GlobalData also predicted over 30 potential unicorns in Q4 2021. Some of the companies include Scribd, The EVERY Company (Clara Foods Co), KoinWorks, Digital Arbitrage Inc., Domino Data Lab Inc. and Liqid Inc.

Scribd is an unlimited reading subscription that gives its subscribers access to a growing collection of audiobooks, ebooks, podcasts, magazines, documents, and more.

The EVERY Company (Clara Foods Co) develops real animal protein without the use of a single animal, starting with chicken-less egg proteins. EVERY was originally founded as Clara Foods in 2014, and got rebranded in 2021 to better capture its vision to bring animal-free proteins to everyone, everywhere.

KoinWorks is the P2P fintech lender in Indonesia that offers a comprehensive platform of financial tools to help its customers, including e-commerce vendors and social commerce sellers, increase their sales.

Digital Arbitrage, Inc., operating business as Cloudbeds, offers property management, travel, booking, and other hospitality solutions.

Liqid provides a comprehensive composable infrastructure platform that empowers users to manage, scale, and configure physical, bare-metal server systems in seconds and then reallocate core data center devices on-demand as workflows and business needs evolve.

Bajaj concludes: “In the next quarter, GlobalData expects potential unicorn predictions to reach more than 3,000 companies based on proprietary AI-driven model. Besides traditional technologies such as IoT, big data, AI, cloud, and robotics, we are also likely to see more unicorns in areas such as advanced materials, edge computing, and industrial automation.”

Grab your copy of the Spotting Future Unicorns report here