When it comes to spotting the next billion-dollar startups, a number of venture capital firms seem to be doing a pretty good job.
According to new research from Ilya Strebulaev of the Venture Capital Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business, 50 top investors have been the most successful in backing companies that would later achieve unicorn status.
So, who made the top 50?
First, What Qualifies As A Unicorn?
A unicorn is a phrase used to describe a privately owned company that has reached a valuation of $1 billion or more.
Usually, this happens through private investment rounds led by VCs, rather than listing on the public stock market.
The term ‘unicorn’ was used because, like their mythical homonym, unicorn companies are extremely rare.
And with the growth of many unicorns in recent years, some have adopted the terms decacorn (companies valued at $10 billion or more) and even hectocorn (companies worth $100 billion or more.)
And yes, hectocorns do exist – but we’ll get onto those later!
The VCs That Have Backed Over 100 Unicorns Each
At the very top of the list is The U.S’s Sequoia Capital, with a huge 134 investments in companies that went on to become unicorns. Sequoia is well known for investing in global companies (not just US ones) and focusing on early stage venture capital.
In fact, amongst its biggest success stories is its investment in Apple, which it invested $150,000 in 1978.
Not far behind them is Andreessen Horowitz with 124 unicorn investments, followed by SVA (121), Kleiner Perkins (116) and Accel at 102.
The final in the list of firms with over 100 unicorns is accelerator Y Combinator, which has helped launch an impressive 101 unicorns.
These 6 firms have backed some of the biggest startup names in the world, not just once, but hundreds of times.
Interestingly, all of the top 6 VC firms are based in the US, raising questions about why the country is leaps and bounds ahead when it comes to investor growth.
The VCs That Have Backed Between 50-99 Unicorns
In the next tier down, just slightly below 100 but some well into the 90s, are a number of VCs that have backed over 50 Unicorns in their time.
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) leads this group with 92 unicorns, with big names like Cloudflare, Coursera and Robinhood in its portfolio.
GGV Capital follows closely at 90.
Lightspeed Venture Partners has backed 78 unicorns, with Insight Partners coming in at 74.
Founders Fund has reached 73 unicorns and General Catalyst is just behind with 67.
Khosla Ventures also ranks highly, at 65 unicorns.
Other firms in this range include Tiger Global (65), Greylock Partners (58), Index Ventures (58), IVP (57), and Battery Ventures (54).
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The VCs with 35-49 Unicorns Each
The biggest chunk of VC firms on the list fall into this category, with fewer than 50 unicorns under their belt, but still enough to nab them a spot in the global top 50.
Some of the best-known names here include:
- Triple Point Capital (49)
- Benchmark (49)
- T. Rowe Price (49)
- Redpoint Ventures (48)
- Goldman Sachs (48)
- Meritech (47)
- DFJ (45)
- Norwest (45)
Other VC firms include Sapphire (43), Felicis (42), Salesforce Ventures (42), Venrock (42), Notable Capital (41), WTI (41), Box Group (41), Intel Capital (40), Plug and Play (40), Bain Capital (39) and Coatue (38).
Rounding out the top 50 are investors like Thrive Capital (37), Fidelity (37), AME Cloud Ventures (37), Alumni Ventures (36), Temasek (35) and TCV (35).
Who Is Backing Some Of The World’s Biggest Unicorns?
Acording to Wikipedia, the world’s most valuable privately held companies are:
- Space X ($425 billion)
- ByteDance ($315 billion)
- OpenAI ($300 billion)
- Anthropic ($183 billion)
- xAI ($183 billion)
Unsurprisingly, some of the big names on our VC list have backed these companies, with Andreessen Horowitz investing early on in Space X and Open AI.
Lightspeed Venture Partners led Anthropic’s latest round, which attracted Bessemer Venture Partners, Cisco Investments, Fidelity Management and Research Company and General Catalyst to also take part. (Silicon Republic).
The Rise Of Billion Dollar VC Firms
Researched by the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the list of the top 50 unicorn investors shows which firms have mastered finding, growing and scaling the world’s most impressive startups.
Together, these firms have backed hundreds of unicorns, completely changing industries and economies around the world.
