How many unicorns are there?
Published 26 October 2026
There are 1,063 unicorns in the world as of October 26, 2026: private companies that Crunchbase tags as valued at $1 billion or more, not counting ones that went public or shut down. 572 of them, 53.8%, are in the United States. China is second with 132.
The number we did not expect: 472 of the 1,063, 44%, last raised money in 2022 or earlier. 383 of those raised their last round in 2021 or 2022, the two boom years, and nothing since. For them the last price anyone paid is from 2022 or earlier.
Unicorns by country
Source: FundingWatcher, October 2026.
| Country | Unicorns | Share |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 572 | 53.8% |
| China | 132 | 12.4% |
| India | 55 | 5.2% |
| United Kingdom | 48 | 4.5% |
| Germany | 31 | 2.9% |
| France | 23 | 2.2% |
| Canada | 21 | 2.0% |
| Singapore | 18 | 1.7% |
| Israel | 16 | 1.5% |
| Brazil | 12 | 1.1% |
| South Korea | 12 | 1.1% |
| Netherlands | 11 | 1.0% |
| 40 other countries | 112 | 10.5% |
| Total | 1,063 | 100% |
San Francisco alone has 144, more than all of China. New York has 96, Beijing 47 and London 39.
Unicorns by founding year
| Founded | Unicorns |
|---|---|
| Before 2005 | 52 |
| 2005 to 2009 | 95 |
| 2010 to 2014 | 377 |
| 2015 to 2019 | 433 |
| 2020 to 2025 | 105 |
| Unknown | 1 |
The single biggest founding year is 2015, with 124 unicorns, 60 of them American. The drop after 2019 is partly age: a company founded in 2023 has had three years to reach a $1 billion valuation, a 2015 company has had eleven. Even so, 20 companies founded in 2023 already carry the tag.
Unicorns by year of their last round
| Last round | Unicorns |
|---|---|
| 2020 or earlier | 89 |
| 2021 | 181 |
| 2022 | 202 |
| 2023 | 88 |
| 2024 | 167 |
| 2025 | 150 |
| 2026 so far | 185 |
| Unknown | 1 |
335 unicorns, 31.5%, raised in 2025 or 2026. The stale ones are mostly American: 241 of the 572 US unicorns (42%) last raised in 2021 or 2022, against 28 of 132 in China (21%) and 13 of 55 in India (24%).
How much they raised
822 of the 1,063 have a total amount raised in Crunchbase. The median is $464 million. Together they raised $1.18 trillion, and two companies account for 32% of that: OpenAI with $208 billion and Anthropic with $171 billion.
By sector group, 773 are tagged software, 313 financial services and 291 artificial intelligence. A company can carry several groups.
Method
- Unicorn: Crunchbase's unicorn tag. We did not check valuations ourselves, and Crunchbase does not record when a company crossed $1 billion, so there is no "became a unicorn in year X" table.
- Excluded: companies that went public or closed, by their Crunchbase status.
- Country and city: the headquarters location in Crunchbase.
- Last round: the date of the most recent funding round of any type, including debt, secondary sales and corporate rounds.
- Amount raised: Crunchbase's total funding in US dollars. 241 unicorns have no total and are left out of the median.
Crunchbase data as of October 26, 2026.
Data
Counts by country, founding year and year of last round. The full list with rounds is on the unicorn companies page; the count is also on the dashboard.