Venture capital investments are slowing down. It is a fact highlighted by the numbers (-23% in the first half of the year), yet the birth of new unicorns does not stop. According to the Hurun Research Institute’s Global Unicorn Index 2022 Half-Year Report in the first half of the year, the number of innovative companies valued over one billion is rose by 254 (+ 24%) to 1,312. The United States remains at the top of the rankings, adding 138 unicorns to their credit and coming in at 625, while China ranked second with 312 and an increase of 11 and India held third place with 68, an increase of 14.
Taking into account the ranking by city, San Francisco retained the title of “Unicorn Capital of the World” with 176 unicorns, up by 25. New York it overtook Beijing to take second place with 120 unicorns, an increase of 35. While the Chinese capital, with 90 unicorns, fell to third place, followed by Shanghai with 69.
On average, these companies were founded 8 years ago and 80% sell software and services and only 20% physical products. 52% are B2B companies and 48% are directly consumer oriented. The total value of unicorns in the world is 27.9 trillion yuan, surpassing Germany’s GDP in one year.
The trend, however, is patchy. The most prolific sectors are financial services, business management, medical and health care and retail, and if there are sectors that are growing, there are also sectors that have stopped. Among the first, the cybersecurity industry recorded a particular exploit between 2021 and 2022, which churns out unicorns at a pace never seen before. 2022 could be the year of the historical record for the sector: there are already 19 new companies valued at over a billion dollars and at the end of the year they could exceed 36 in 2021. Relevant numbers if we take into account that before the pandemic the sector traveled well under 10 unicorns per year. Estimates, based on data from the Progress Partner Market Report, are by Atlas VPN, according to which the surge in cyber attacks on a global scale is creating new markets and new development opportunities for cybersecurity companies.
Despite the growth in company valuations, the cybersecurity sector is showing particular vivacity also in terms of exits: in the first six months of the year there were 18 acquisitions. The most striking was that of VMware, a cluod computing company, by Broadcom for 69 billion dollars. The other operations are much smaller: SailPoint, market leader in corporate identity security, was acquired by Thoma Bravo, in a fully cash transaction of approximately 6.9 billion, while Datto, a provider of software solutions based on cloud and security created specifically for managed service providers, was acquired by Kaseya for $ 6.2 billion.