What's Interesting about Unicorn Ventures? An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Unicorns—private new venture firms with over a billion dollars in valuation—are a category that has recently emerged in the entrepreneurship domain. New ventures valued at or above one billion dollars have garnered increased attention from the media, analysts, regional politicians, and the general public. Using a complete dataset of all unicorns, we unpack similarities and differences within this group of high-growth venture firms. We examine critical issues around the resourcing and scaling of unicorn ventures, to highlight significant differences in the speed at which unicorn ventures have achieved their coveted status within our population. Guided by prior research, we specifically examine the associations among founder, investment, venture, business model characteristics, and the time to reach unicorn status. We provide some novel findings that we hope will provide a foundation for building a future theory of high-growth ventures.