Unicorns are rare mythical creatures – and in the startup scene, unicorns are also rather rare in terms of the total number. Cracking the billion dollar valuation is still an important milestone for many founders.
The path to billion dollar valuation
Of course, it’s not just about rank and title: Stanford professor Ilya Strebulaev looked at 1,500 US startups in his “Unicorn Investors Report” from this year and found: “The path to unicorn status fundamentally depends on successful fundraising.” So it’s about cash – of course.
According to Strebulaev, unicorns in the US raise an average of $340 million in equity before reaching unicorn status and take six and a half years to do so. But of course some do it faster – both in the USA and in Europe. So we see another category, which also includes one of the unicorns from 2025: “Rocketship unicorns,” as the early-stage investor and accelerator Antler calls them. They reach a valuation of one billion in two years – or even less.
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While we only had one new unicorn in Germany last year with Egym, things will look different in 2025. If you look at the startups, it becomes clear what the reason is: the increasing importance of AI and defense in the VC sector.
