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he term ‘Unicorn’ — referring to a privately held startup company valued at over $1 billion — was coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee in 2013, choosing the mythical creature to represent the statistical rarity of such highly valued ventures. As of January 2019, there are more than 300 unicorns around the world. A variant of the unicorn is the decacorn, which refers to companies valued at over $10 billion. Other types of startups include ‘my little pony’ — a startup worth $10 million or more; a ‘centaur’ — a startup worth $100 million or more; a ‘quinquagintacorn’ — a startup worth $50 billion or more; and a ‘unicorpse’ — a former ‘unicorn’ now valued at less than $1 billion. Although the vocabulary may sound ridiculous, the development of these new industry jargons represents the vast proliferation of startups all over the world, in the past decade. This coming year is expected to be shaped by decacorn IPOs, with at least five of the nine US-based startups valued at more than $10 billion by private investors expected to go public in 2019. But exactly how long does it take for them to reach decacorn status? RS Components has investigated how quickly it took some of the world’s leading businesses to go from unicorns to decacorns. Of the ridesharing startups aiming for success
Uber, Lyft, Didi Chuxing, and GrabTaxi have already hit $10 billion. •
Uber is likely to fetch a valuation of between $90 billion and $100 billion, following its IPO later this year, despite Wall Street banks’ proposing a valuation of $120 billion. Recently, the company was valued at $76 billion in the private fundraising market
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Didi Chuxing, among Uber’s biggest rivals, is one of the fastest companies to transition from unicorn to decacorn status
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US-based ride hailing app Lyft was valued at $24.3 billion in its IPO this year, according to Reuters
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GrabTaxi is a Singapore-based technology company that offers ride-hailing in Southeast Asian countries, and it took just three and a half years to go from unicorn to decacorn status
The transportation network giant Uber, founded in March 2009, reached unicorn status in August 2013, only four years and five months after starting up. Uber offers on-demand private cars and food delivery — the company has operations in 785 metropolitan areas worldwide. The on-demand transport service reached decacorn
status 10 months later in June 2014, much sooner than the global average. Similarly, Didi Chuxing, reportedly looking at a $80 billion valuation from its still in the works IPO, is a Chinese ridesharing, artificial intelligence, and autonomous technology conglomerate. Headquartered in Beijing, the company offers services including private carhailing, social ride-sharing, and food delivery to Chinese users through smartphone. Didi Chuxing reached decacorn status only six months after reaching unicorn status in December 2014, two and a half years after being founded.
Lyft and Uber Lyft, a ridehailing unicorn from the US, is in its initial weeks as public company and it is in a stiff competition with Uber. Lyft was valued at $24.3 billion in its IPO this year. The company priced its IPO at $72 per share, which was slightly above its initial offering between $70 to $72 per share. However, at the start of its IPO roadshow, the company had disclosed a price range between $62 to $68 per share. Despite its name, GrabTaxi is not just a taxi service — it offers food delivery services too. At the young age of two and a half years, it reached $1 billion (unicorn status) in valuation. Just three and a half years later it hit the decacorn status and is currently valued at $11 billion. So, why is the on-demand transportation industry doing
International Finance
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