The explosive growth of the tech market, including artificial intelligence, data centers, cloud computing, and robotics, has drawn huge attention from VC investors, who poured billions of dollars into tech companies and startups over the past seven years. And while tech companies, in general, have become a new shiny object for investors, most of the VC capital went to the United States.
According to data presented by AltIndex.com, the United States counts 274 tech unicorns, nine times more than China and 5.5 times more than Europe.
There are 3.5x more US Tech Unicorns than European and Chinese Combined
Although China has increasingly challenged the US technology dominance in recent years, the United States remains the world’s biggest technological superpower and home to the most private tech startups valued at over $1 billion. Several factors have driven the rise in tech unicorns. Digital transformation and technological developments have fueled investor optimism and competition, with many pouring billions of dollars into prospective startups in their early stages. Also, these businesses are highly scalable, especially in software and platform models, making it easier to reach billion-dollar valuations. These factors all contributed to the snowballing effect of the US unicorn companies.
According to AltIndex’s analysis of the CBInsights data, which tracks the global number of unicorn companies, US dominance in the tech unicorn market is enormous.
As of October, 274 US private tech startups were valued at over $1 billion, almost 70% of the world’s total. This figure is even more impressive when compared to the US’s biggest tech rival, China, or Europe. Statistics show the United States counts 3.5 times more tech unicorns than Europe and China combined.
According to CBInsights data, China is home to 30 tech unicorns, nine times less than the United States, with ByteDance, Xiaohongshu, and Yuanfudao as the top three names. The European market counts 49 private tech startups valued at over $1 billion, or 5.5 times less than the United States.
Total Number of Tech Unicorns is Close to 400
The rise of tech unicorns in the US market and globally has helped their total number to increase sixfold in the past five years. Back in 2018, 63 private tech startups were valued at over $1 billion; now, their number is close to 400. The CBInisghts data show that 65% of them, or 261, are valued between $1.1 billion and $5 billion. Another 89 are valued at $1 billion, and 29 are between $5 billion and $10 billion. Statistics also show only two companies on this list have valuations of over $50 billion, the US AI giant OpenAI and Chinese ByteDance.
Analyzed by years, most tech companies and startups joined the unicorn club during 2021 and 2022, 165 and 90, respectively. Although the number of new names on the list dropped to 22 last year, 2024 shows signs of recovery, with 28 new tech unicorns in the nine months.