All is not well with India's startup ecosystem. According to the Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2024, India for the first time recorded a decline in unicorn creation since 2017. India in 2023 had 67 unicorns, which is one less than 68 such startups last year, according to the latest Hurun Global Unicorn Index. The US led the list with 703 unicorns, up 37 from 2022, and China woth 340 unicorns. UK and EU ranked No 4 and No 5 in the list, respectively. The total value of the world's unicorns have reached US$5 trillion, equivalent to last year's GDP of Japan.
The slowdown is mainly due to lack of investment into start-ups despite the recent stock market record highs.
The report, however, noted that India produced more offshore unicorns than any other country, co-founding 109 unicorns outside of India compared to 67 in India.
“India’s start-up ecosystem has slowed, with the number of unicorns down for the first time since the launch of Hurun list,” the report noted.
Anas Rahman Junaid, Founder and Chief Researcher at Hurun India, said: "The slowdown is primarily fuelled by lack of investment into start-ups despite the recent stock market record highs."
He noted that as per the findings of the report Indian founders are establishing more unicorns abroad than at home, with a majority in the United States.
"Of the unicorns founded outside of India, mostly were in the US (95), led by the Bay Area, with 4 in the UK, 3 in Singapore and 2 in Germany," Junaid added.
In general, the report has found 1,453 unicorns in the world, based in 53 countries and 291 cities. Around 430 unicorns saw their valuations rise, of which 171 were new faces. About 170 saw their valuations drop, of which 42 were ‘demoted’ as their valuation no longer made the cut of $1bn. 37 were ‘promoted’ out of the list, of which 29 went IPO and 8 were acquired. 895 saw no change to their valuations. Their total value was $4.6 trillion.
Unicorns worldwide
The report noted that the top 10 unicorns were in China and the US, with both countries having four each. The list is rounded off with one unicorn each from Australia and Malta.
The leading unicorns added $198 billion in value, accounting for 45% of the year's overall increase in valuation among unicorns worldwide.
The Chinese Internet conglomerate, ByteDance, retained its status as the world's most valuable unicorn startup with an estimated value of $220 billion. This triumphant accomplishment endures despite looming threats from the US government to potentially implement a ban.
Exceptional credentials extend further down the list, showcasing other notable Chinese startups including Ant Group under Alibaba’s financial subdivision; Shein, a highly recognised fast-fashion retailer, and WeBank, a digital banking institution established by Tencent.
“The world has minted one unicorn every two days over the last year to take the total of known unicorns in the world to a new record of just under 1500. Despite the slowdown of the economy, China still managed to keep up with the US in terms of new unicorns, each minting more than one unicorn a week for every week of the year,” said Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher Rupert Hoogewerf.
“A key feature of the Global Unicorn Index is that it is compiled using data from the world‟s leading investors, the entrepreneurs behind the entrepreneurs‟, making this the most comprehensive list of the world‟s unicorns," Hoogewerf added.
The year 2024 has been marked as "the year of AI", with OpenAI's valuation reaching $100 billion. The World‟s 10 most valuable unicorns made up half of all new value increases, led by OpenAI, up $80bn in value to US$100bn and SpaceX, up $43 billion to $180 billion.”
“This has been the year of AI. OpenAI led the way, adding US$80bn of value to be worth US$100bn today. In China, one-year-old Beijing-based Moonshot AI and two-year-old Shanghai-based MiniMax are leading the way for ChatGPT-like products. Others include Atlanta-based OneTrust, which uses AI for data security, UK-based Graphcore, that highlights the global race towards computational capabilities and India-based Glance, which showcases the impact of AI in transforming content consumption on mobile platforms,” the report noted.
“The last five years have been a golden era for entrepreneurship. We have seen the biggest explosion of new technologies coming to market that the world has ever known. Since 2019, the number of unicorns has tripled from 494 to 1453. Whilst the US is leading the way with half of the world‟s known unicorns, the number of countries with at least one unicorn has more than doubled from 24 to 53 and the number of cities with at least one unicorn has grown from 118 to 291,” Hoogewerf said.
"The US has half of the world‟s known unicorns, led by SaaS, FinTech and AI, China a quarter, led by AI, Semiconductors and New Energy, while the Rest of the World has the other quarter, led by FinTech and E-commerce,” he added.
The report noted 5% of the Global Unicorns Index are spinoffs from a larger company, with the core business a startup in the 2000s. "The biggest example is fintech Ant Group, which was a spin off in 2004 of the online payments business Alipay from the much bigger Alibaba Group. Others include several of the EV makers, incubated and then spun off from the traditional car manufacturer. Most of these spinoffs are from China,” the report noted.
Top 10 Unicorns
The cut-off to make the Top 10 list in the world was $33 billion, up $6 nillion. This year's Top 10 made up 18% of the total value of the world's unicorns.
China and US each had four of the Top 10, with 1 in both of Australia and Malta.
The Top 10 added $198 billion, making up 45% of all the new value added in the year.
There were three new faces: San Francisco-based OpenAI, Australia-based Canva and Maltabased Binance, at the expense of Telegram and Revolut, which dropped down to the Top 30, and Cainiao, which dropped down to the Top 50.