Unicorn Startup Company List in USA - 2019

Look out for a more comprehensive set of this list as we will need a few articles just to give you the complete summary of recently activated companies under this category. Now, let’s get to it!

1 - Wish

After having launched in 2010, Wish, this San-Francisco-based startup closed its latest Series H funding round recently to now find itself at an 11.0+ billion valuation. The amount is unconfirmed, yet General Atlantic alone is known to have contributed $300 million to this effect. Moving more aggressively into Europe and North America with improved logistics, the shopping app now prides on more than 500 million users.

Did you ever think cheap and stylish products would allow you to turn down a $10 billion cash offer from Amazon one day?

2- ThoughtSpot, Inc.

It’s taken this tech company 7 years, but producing business-intelligence analytics search software that focuses on adding speed to data analysis has proven its worth with a current valuation very close to $2 billion. Based out of Palo Alto, ThoughtSpot also bears offices in London and Seattle to deal with answers to natural language questions whereby their software translates queries into SQL to then display a data chart as a question result. A definite $248 million funding round that was led by Lightspeed Ventures is the one to have stirred the latest buzz around ThoughtSpot, Inc.

3- Knotel

WeWork rival Knotel became part of the unicorn finance world after a recent $400m funding. This startup focuses on workspace from a flexible standpoint and has partnered with big brands for customized and fully serviced space offerings. A Kuwaiti state-backed investment firm is the one behind this New-York-based company that was just founded a few 3 years ago and is already running office spaces in 200 locations across the globe.

4- Wheels Up

Wheels Up is an aviation company that primarily serves members in the United States just hit a 1.1 billion valuation after completing a $128 million round. Founded back in 2013 on a membership/on-demand business model, Tom Brady and Serena Williams figure amongst its most re-known members.

5- DoorDash Inc.

This food delivery from restaurants kind of on-demand service founded in Palo Alto in 2013 by Stanford students is now available in more than 600 cities across North America. According to Forbes and after a $400M round, their current valuation exceeds $12.5 billion, which is a successful doubling, almost, to their prior valuation.

In fact, it is Forbes itself also reporting how “DoorDash’s market share has surpassed Postmates and Uber Eats in the U.S.” While the two big Ds place focuses on the US and Canada with a 325% growth year-over-year on their record, their Uber competitor is also focused on international market gain.

6- Scale AI

A $100 million Series C round of financing led by Founders Fund last month has allowed this three-year-old startup a valuation past $1 billion. Run by 22-year-old Chief Executive Alexandr Wang, the way business works for Scale AI is that companies give them data via their available API and the startup then labels text, audio, pics, and video for their customers’ models of machine learning to be trained. With over 100 employees and customers along the lines of Waymo and Uber, AI cannot be fully left in machines’ hands, but still finds human interaction key in keeping high-quality data.

7- TuSimple

In all fairness, this startup is actually based in China, yet has developed trucks in labs in San Diego and tested them between there and their operations facility in Tucson. That distance, precisely, driven without human intervention is the cornerstone for this fully autonomous truck driving business. Aiming to spare around $70 billion per year on logistics and shipping costs while also decreasing carbon emissions on enhanced safety, the goal is also placed on productivity boosts of up to 30%. Valued at $1.095 billion, this year is expected to end with 200 trucks as part of their US fleet with 100 more than that being based in the Chinese territory. Easily put, TuSimple would be the largest self-driven truck company worldwide by then.

8- Rubrik

When you think of a cloud data management company based in Palo Alto, California, numerous names must come to mind. For Rubrik, though, which was founded in the United States in December 2013 and has a strength factor in terms of backup and recovery, the differentiator beyond rapid growth and transparent culture is most likely set in its valuation above US$3 billion by now. They actually hit unicorn status a couple of years back, yet hit the 3.3 marks at the start of this calendar year.

9- Niantic, Inc.

Yet another American software development startup out of San Fran, yet this one goes into the augmented reality realm for mobile games such as Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Formed as an internal startup within Google back in 2010, Niantic  became an independent entity in October 2015 and is now running on a valuation of close to $4 billion after a $245 million score in a Series C fundraising round led by IVP, with funding participants amidst the calibre of Samsung Ventures and Causeway Media Partners.

10- 10x Genomics

Let’s vary things up a bit with an American biotechnology company founded in 2012 that raised $35 million in Series D funding this year and works with design and manufacturing of gene sequencing technology for scientific research. With a $1.28 billion valuation, 10x Genomics ultimately works with revolutionary DNA sequencing technology and has raised a historic total of $243 million.

11- Stripe

Let’s wrap this up with big guns to some degree, shall we?

What another tech company out of San Francisco has to offer at a $22.5 billion valuation has to do with online payments for individuals and businesses alike. Payment processing linked to tech and fraud prevention along with a certain banking infrastructure characterizes this online payment system called Stripe. Just 3 years ago, this company ranged in the $9 billion valuation realm. It’s been an additional $100 million from investment firm Tiger Global Management what has boosted Stripe’s current valuation figures to double that.

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