It is the age of the unicorn startup. As more and more startups choose to forego the IPO and seek private financing, the billion dollar startup may not be a unicorn anymore. These “startups”, as people still insist on calling them, are often much larger than many public tech companies.
Below is a list of the true unicorn tech companies worth over $10 Billion.
Xiaomi ~ $46 Billion
Primarily a smartphone company, Xiaomi employs roughly 5,000 people around the world and only released its first smartphone in 2011. Its rapid growth in China has helped make it the third largest smartphone maker in the world. It is currently the most valuable private tech company.
Uber ~ $40 Billion
Uber has a knack for making headlines. Just today they made headlines worldwide after Paris arrested Uber employees in their Paris office for operating an illegal taxi service. But despite headlines like these or perhaps because of them Uber has raised a war chest that has them at a $40 billion valuation.
Palantir ~ $15 Billion
A big data, software and services company that started by doing data analysis for American intelligence agencies. They have since expanded to providing services for the private sector. Their decision to say private is deliberate, stating that it would make running their company difficult.
FlipKart ~ $12 Billion
FlipKart exclusively operates in India for now but that hasn’t stopped it from growing into an e-commerce powerhouse focusing mostly on electronics. They’ve used their extensive funding for various acquisitions.
Pinterest ~ $11 Billion
Pinterest is the photo sharing and storage social network launched five years ago. Some are predicting their next step is to become a search engine and rival Google.
AirBnB ~ $10 Billion
AirBnB grew very quickly after taking part in the biggest tech accelerator, Y Combinator. The disruptive company allows users to rent out rooms or entire homes. It now operates in over 190 countries.
DropBox ~ $10 Billion
Another Y-Combinator startup, Dropbox has been able to keep strong market share despite tech giants like Google getting into the cloud storage business. Their competitor Box recently had their IPO and their stock has steadily declining since.
Snapchat ~10 Billion
The ephemeral messaging app turned teen social media powerhouse have been making headlines for its huge user engagement numbers and even bigger funding rounds from the likes of Prince Alwaleed and Alibaba