The Hurun Research Institute released the inaugural Hurun Global Unicorn List 2019, a ranking of the world’s billion-dollar tech ‘start-ups’ founded in the 2000s and not yet listed on a public exchange.  

This is the first year of the list, and follows on from the 6th quarterly Hurun China Unicorn Index. Valuations are a snapshot of 30 June 2019.

Hurun Research found 494 unicorns in the world, based in 24 countries and 118 cities. Set up seven years ago on average, they are worth US$3.4bn on average and US$1.7tn in total.

Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher Rupert Hoogewerf said: “We have found just under 500 unicorns in the world. The Hurun Global Unicorn List 2019 is designed to inspire entrepreneurship amongst wannabe entrepreneurs and encourage investors. These young companies, only seven years old on average, are the world’s most exciting start-ups, leading a new generation of disruptive technology.”

“China and the USA dominate with over 80% of the world’s known unicorns, despite representing only half of the world’s GDP and a quarter of the world’s population.  The rest of the world needs to wake up to creating an environment that allows unicorns to flourish in.”

Where are the World’s Unicorns based?

The world’s unicorns are based in only 24 countries around the world, spread around 118 cities. China pipped the USA to lead by 206 versus 203, together accounting for over 80% of the world’s unicorns. Europe has 35 unicorns.

India was third with 21 unicorns, led by payments solutions platform One97 Communications (US$10bn), cab aggregator Ola Cabs (US$6bn), online educator Byju’s (US$6bn), and travel-stay finder OYO Rooms (US$5bn).

The UK was fourth with 13, led by health and beauty online retailing platform The Hut Group (US$5bn). Interestingly, the UK has more unicorns than Germany and France combined.

By city, Beijing is the world’s unicorn capital with 82, comfortably ahead of San Francisco with 55, followed by Shanghai, New York and Hangzhou. As a region, Silicon Valley leads the world with 102 or 21% of the world’s unicorns.

Table 1: Top Countries and cities where the world’s unicorns are based

Source: Hurun Research Institute

What industries are the World’s Unicorns from?

E-commerce and fintech make up 31% of the world’s unicorns, followed by cloud and AI. The world’s unicorns span 25 industries, with the ‘Big 5 Industries’ making up half of the total. Hoogewerf says, “These are the industries that are disrupting the world economy, initiating the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and widely considered to hold the key to the future.  Not surprising that many of the world’s top young talent want to work in these sectors.”

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