n. A technology company that is less than ten years old and worth more than one billion dollars.
2014
Forget the $1 billion "unicorns" out there — the last year has been all about the rise of the $10 billion companies — both Dropbox and Chinese mobile hardware company Xiaomi both had rounds at $10 billion valuations, raising hundreds of millions of dollars.
2014
What's more, the number of $100 million plus funding rounds last year doubled compared to 2010, and one much-buzzed-about report shows there are more than two dozen tech startups valued at more than $1 billion. There's even a new catchphrase for such startups, which include Dropbox, Uber and Snapchat: "unicorns," denoting both their rareness and their dazzling promise.
2013 (earliest)
We found 39 companies belong to what we call the "Unicorn Club" (by our definition, U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 and valued at over $1 billion by public or private market investors). …
On average, four unicorns were born per year in the past decade, with Facebook being the breakout "super-unicorn" (worth >$100 billion).
On average, four unicorns were born per year in the past decade, with Facebook being the breakout "super-unicorn" (worth >$100 billion).