Tech Unicorns – Top 10 Themes in 2021 – Thematic Research

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The term unicorn describes a rare, mythical creature, but unicorns (privately held companies worth $1bn or more) are no longer rare. There are currently 826 unicorns, of which 751 are tech unicorns. In early 2020, there was a pandemic-induced slowdown in new tech unicorn births. However, 2021 promises to be a record year, with 228 new tech unicorns created in H1 2021 alone. The US is home to half of the tech unicorns today, followed by China. The US hosts most of the cloud, fintech, healthtech, big data, and cybersecurity unicorns. China leads in AI unicorns. Tiger Global is the leading investor in tech unicorns. Sequoia Capital and Softbank follow closely behind. All three have a strong portfolio in top three themes: ecommerce, cloud, and fintech. The pandemic caused a slowdown in unicorn creation in early 2020, but 2021 is the strongest year yet. A total of 228 new unicorns were born in H1 2021 alone.

What are the top themes in which unicorns operate?

Half of today’s tech unicorns are operating in the e-commerce, cloud, fintech themes, AI, Healthtech, Edtech, Bigdata, Cybersecurity, Digital Media and Blockchain. The ecommerce, cloud, and fintech unicorns together are worth more than $1.2 trillion. These internet-driven themes saw a strong growth amid the pandemic. Another 30% of today’s unicorns operate in AI, healthtech, Edtech, big data, cybersecurity, digital media, and blockchain themes. There are also a handful of unicorns in capital-intensive themes like space economy, batteries, 3D printing, and quantum computing. Due to high barriers to entry, only a few start-ups in these themes can achieve unicorn status.

What is the geographical distribution of tech unicorns operating in the top 10 themes?

The regions included are US, China, Europe, APAC ex. China and rest of the world. The US hosts most of the cloud, fintech, healthtech, big data, and cybersecurity unicorn. The first unicorns emerged in the US in the early 2000s and the country continues to lead the unicorn club. It is currently home to 379 tech unicorns. The number of unicorns in other geographies is also growing rapidly.

The US is home to half of the tech unicorns today, while China hosts 22% of them. The US hosts most of the cloud, fintech, healthtech, big data, and cybersecurity unicorns. China leads in AI unicorns

Geographies with most tech unicorns, 2021

Geographies with most tech unicorns, 2021

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Who are the leading investors in tech unicorns?

Tiger Global is the leading investor in today’s tech unicorns followed by Sequoia Capital and Softbank. These investors have a strong portfolio in the top three themes, e-commerce, cloud, and fintech. All of the top 20 investors have invested in these three themes. We are seeing increasing investments in themes like AI, healthtech, and edtech. Investors are starting to invest in blockchain, a trend that is likely to increase. Sequoia Capital has invested in six digital media unicorns including Canva, Deezer, and Kuainkan Manhua. The other investors are Accel, Coatue, Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, Tencent Holdings, Fidelity Investments GV and Insight partners. Accel and Insight Partners are the leading investors in cybersecurity unicorns. Accel has invested in big cybersecurity unicorns like Netskope, Synk, and Illumio, while Insight Partner backs OneTrust, Transmit Security, and Acronis.

Leading investors in tech unicorns, 2021

Leading investors in tech unicorns, 2021

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Market report scope

Key Themes Ecommerce, Cloud, Fintech, AI, Healthtech, Edtech, Big data, Cybersecurity, Digital media, and Blockchain
Key Investors Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital, Softbank, Accel, Coatue, Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, Tencent Holdings, Fidelity Investments GV and Insight partners.

Scope

  • This report looks at the top 10 themes in which today’s tech unicorns operate.
  • It includes a list of all the current unicorns for each theme.
  • It also provides details of the current top 10 unicorns operating in each theme, including valuation, funding, country, and description.
  • In addition, we include the geographical distribution of the current tech unicorns for each theme, the top investors by the number of investments in the current unicorns, the unicorns which we expect to exit the club in the next two years, and a list of start-ups that we expect will soon become unicorns.

Key Highlights

In early 2020, there was a pandemic-induced slowdown in new tech unicorn births. However, 2021 promises to be a record year, with 228 new tech unicorns created in H1 2021 alone.

Half of today’s tech unicorns are operating in the ecommerce, cloud, or fintech themes. Another 30% operate in the AI, healthtech, edtech, big data, cybersecurity, digital media, and blockchain themes.

The US is home to half of the tech unicorns today, while China hosts 22% of them. The US hosts most of the cloud, fintech, healthtech, big data, and cybersecurity unicorns. China leads in AI unicorns.

Tiger Global is the leading investor in tech unicorns. Sequoia Capital and Softbank follow closely behind. All three have a strong portfolio in top three themes: ecommerce, cloud, and fintech.

Reasons to Buy

  • The number of tech unicorns is growing rapidly. This report will help you understand why and identify the themes that are driving this growth.
  • It highlights the top 10 tech themes in which today’s unicorns operate. These include ecommerce, cloud, fintech, AI, healthtech, EdTech, big data, cybersecurity, digital media, and blockchain.
  • It includes predictions on which unicorns might IPO soon and an analysis of start-ups that we expect to achieve unicorn status.
  • In addition, it provides an analysis of the leading investors in unicorns, including a look at the themes in which they are investing.

1Password
4Paradigm
Accel
Accolade
Acko
Acronis
Adevinta
Adyen
Affirm
Afiniti
Agora
Airbnb
Airtable
Aiven
Alchemy
Allbirds
Allegro
Alto Pharmacy
Amwell
Andreessen Horowitz
ApplyBoard
Arctic Wolf Networks
Articulate
Atom Bank
Attentive
Aurora
Avast
AvidXchange
Baillie Gifford
Bain Capital
Benchling
Bentley Systems
Better.com
Bilibili
Bird Rides
BitFury
Bitmain Technologies
Bitpanda
BlaBlaCar
Blockchain Capital
Blockchain.com
BlockFi
Blockstream
Bright Health Group
Buzzfeed
BYJU's
Bytedance
C3.ai
Caffeine
Calm
Cambicon
Canaan
Canva
Carbon Health
Celonis
Chainalysis
Checkout.com
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Chewy
Chime
Chindata
Circle Internet Financial
Citi
Classplus
CleverTap
Cloudflare
Cloudwalk
Clubhouse
Clutter
Coatue
Coinbase
Coinbase Ventures
Confluent
Contentful
Cootek
Cortilia
Corvus Insurance
Couchbase
Coupang
Coursera
Covariant
Crowdstrike
Cuemath
Cure Fit
Cybereason
Cylance
D1 Capital
Dadi Cinema
Dapper Labs
Darktrace
Dashlane
Databricks
Datadog
Dataiku
Dataminr
DataRobot
Dave
Delhivery
Deliverect
Deliveroo
Dell
Deskera
Didi Chuxing
Digital Currency Group
Discord
Docusign
Doordash
Dragoneer Investment Group
Dropbox
DST Global
Dunamu
Dunzo
Duolingo
EBANX
Ecom Express
Epic Games
Epidemic Sound
Eruditus Executive Education
Exabeam
Faire
FalconX
Fanatics
Farfetch
Fidelity Investments
Fresh to Home
Freshworks
FTX
FullStory
General Atlantic
General Catalyst
Genies
Geodesic Capital
Getir
Github
GitLab
Global Switch
Glynn Capital Management
GoCardless
Goldman Sachs
Gong
GoodRx
goPuff
Grab
Grafana Labs
Graphcore
Grayscale
Guild Education
Gusto
GV
Habana Labs
HashiCorp
Health Catalyst
HighRadius
Hillhouse Capital Group
Hinge Health
Hippo
Hive
Hopin
Horizon Robotics
Howden Group Holdings
IDG capital
Illumio
Imperfect Foods
Imply
Indegene
Index Ventures
Infobip
InMobi
Insight partners
Instacart
Institutional Venture Partners
Intel
Ironclad
JD Health
JD.com
Jfrog
Kaseya
Klarna
Klaviyo
Kleiner Perkins
Komodo Health
Kraken
Kuda
Kujiale
Lalamove
Lambda School
Lemonade
Lendingkart
Lenskart
Licious
Lightspeed Venture Partners
LingoChamp
LinkDoc Technology
Livongo
Lufax
Lyft
Lyra Health
Mamaearth
Marqeta
MatchMove Pay
Matrix Partners
MEGVII
Meicai
Meituan
Melallia
MessageBird
Miaoshou Doctor
Monzo
N26
Navi Technologies
Neo4j Inc
Netskope
Newfront Insurance
Ninja Van
Noom
Nubank
Nuix
Nykaa
Oak HC/FT
Ola Cabs
Olive
Omada Health
One Concern
One Medical
One97 Communications
OneTrust
Opendoor
OrCam technologies
Oura Health
OutSystems
Overtime Sports
OVH
Owl Ventures
OYO Rooms
PagerDuty
Pagseguro
Palatir
Paradigm
Patreon
Pinduoduo
Pine Labs
Ping An Good Doctor
Ping Identity
Plaid Technologies
PluralSight
PointClickCare
PolicyBazaar
Practo
Qutoutiao
Rappi
Rapyd
Rebel Foods
reddit
Redis Labs
Remitly
Retool
Revolut
Ribbit Capital
Ridi
Ripple
Riskified
Rivian
Ro
Robinhood
Ruangguru
SambaNova Systems
Scale AI
Seba Bank
SenseTime
SentinelOne
Sequoia Capital
ServiceTitan
ShareChat
Shazam
SHEIN
Skydance Media
SmileDirectClub
Snowflake
Snyk
SoFi
Softbank
Songtradr
SpaceX
Sportradar
Spotify
Sprinklr
Stripe
Talkdesk
Tanium
telos
Temasek Holdings
Tencent Holdings
Tessian
The Athletic
The Hut Group
Thought Machine
ThoughtSpot
Thrive Capital
Tiger Global Management
Toast
TPG Capital
Tradeshift
Transmit Security
Traveloka
Trax
Tray.io
Trulioo
Uable
Uber
Udemy
Unacademy
Uptake
VAST Data
Vedantu
Vice Media
VillageMD
VIPKid
Vox Media
Warby Parker
We Doctor
Wise
Wish
Xiaohongshu
Xinchao Media
Xingsheng Selected
Xpressbees
Y Combinator
Yitu Technology
Yuanfudao
Yunfeng Capital
Zepz
Zilingo
ZongMu Technology
ZoomInfo
Zscaler
Zuoyebang

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

How many tech unicorns exist today?

Where do today’s tech unicorns live?

What are the top 10 unicorn themes?

Who are the top investors in tech unicorns today?

Glossary

Further reading

Our thematic research methodology

Frequently asked questions

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