Number of unicorns globally in 2023, by region

As of the end of 2023, more than half of the unicorn companies worldwide were headquartered in North America. The two regions that hosted the fewest unicorns were South America, and Oceania with 24 and 9 unicorns based in each of these regions. Additionally, most of the highest valued unicorns globally were based in North America or Asia.

What are the world’s leading unicorn companies?

As of 2023, the China-based tech company ByteDance was still the highest valued unicorn worldwide. This was followed by the U.S.-based SpaceX. The third place ranking is completed by ANT Group, a fintech giant based in China. Space X is the highest-valued unicorn in the U.S.. These three world leading startups are all valued at over 100 billion U.S. dollars.

Market valuations of unicorns

The finance and insurance sector, transportation and logistics, and technology and communication sectors proved the most promising for unicorns operating in these industries. Unicorns in these three sectors had a combined market value of over 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars, higher than the market values of unicorns in all other sectors put together. Similar to the regions with the highest number of unicorns, unicorns headquartered in Asia-Pacific and North America also had the highest cumulative market valuations.