Unicorn companies have raised $26.5 billion in funding since the start of 2020 despite the challenging financial climate of the Covid-19 outbreak.

The first quarter of 2020 saw $13.8 billion of investment, followed by $9.6 billion in the second quarter, a 40 percent year-on-year fall, according to AksjeBloggen.com

There were less than 40 unicorns in 2013, and that number had increased to nearly 400 in July 2020, the Norwegian financial services firm said in a press release.

“The impressive growth of these private companies with a market valuation of over one billion dollars has been followed by the increasing number of venture capitalists willing to invest in their business,” the release said. 

Investment growth

Unicorns globally raised $29.8 billion in funding rounds in 2016, with the cumulative value of investments reaching $61.8 billion that year, according to CrunchBase data.

In 2017, the total value of investments in unicorns jumped to $109.1billion. Then 2018 witnessed the most significant increase in the total value of funds raised, when the amount reaching $192.3 billion, then $267.1 billion in 2019.

Asian unicorn companies have so far raised the most funds, with $163.4bn in total funding, followed by US companies with $110.5bn worth of investments. The two regions accounting for 94 percent of all investments into unicorn companies, said AksjBloggen. 

In terms of the types of companies that receive the most funding, internet unicorn companies received $86.1 billion worth of investments as of July, followed by Fintech companies with $58.2 billion worth of funding rounds. They are followed by e-commerce, software and financial services with $53.8 billion, $43.7 billion and $42.8 billion, respectively.

The CrunchBase data also revealed the three largest individual funding rounds in 2020 reached $4.6 billion in value.

On March 4th, the leading Chinese real estate brokerage platform, Beike, raised more than $2.4 billion in a funding round led by SoftBank, the largest investment in 2020. The company announced it would use this capital to improve the efficiency of China's residential services.

The Southeast Asia-based ride-hailing company, Gojek, raised $1.2 billion the same month, the second-largest funding round since the beginning of the year. Some of Gojek's investors include Tencent, Google, and Temasek, and the company plans to expand its operations.

Yuanfudao's latest funding round represents the third-largest unicorn investment in 2020. The Chinese online education platform raised $ 1 billion in March in a new financing round led by Tencent Holdings and private equity firm Hillhouse Capital Group.

To date, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, has produced two unicorn companies, Souq, acquired by Amazon for $580 million in 2017, and Careem, acquired by Uber for $3.1 billion earlier this year.

(Writing by Imogen Lillywhite imogen.lillywhite@refinitiv.com; editing by Daniel Luiz)

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