World's 10 Highest Valued Startups
Many startups are struggling to stay afloat during this time when a pandemic has hit us all. While, most of them had to furlough employees and announce job cuts, some of these startups managed to make it to the list of World’s Highest Valued Startups.
According to a report released by CBInsights there are more than 400 unicorn startups (companies valued at $1 billion or more) in the world as of May 2020.
While a unicorn company is a company valued at over $1 billion, decacorns are valued at over $10 billion. The top 10 list of decacorns also includes Indian e-commerce platform Paytm and Singaporean ride-hailing app Grab.
Here is a list of top 10 decacorns:
1. ByteDance, China
ByteDance is a tech company operating a variety of content platforms that inform, educate, entertain and encourage people across languages, cultures, religions, etc. It was founded by Zhang Yiming in 2012. The top two most valuable startups within the world are Chinese. ByteDance is the parent company of global hit apps TikTok and Toutiao. TikTok has become a global hit, racking up more downloads than Facebook and Instagram. Toutiao is a news aggregator app that uses AI algorithms to track reader habits and deliver relevant content. There mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life.
Investors: Coatue, KKR, SoftBank, General Atlantic, Hillhose, SIG Investment, Source Code Capital and Sequoia Capital China.
Products and Services: Toutiao, Douyin, TikTok, Xigua Video, Helo, Lark, Babe, Tech for Good
Industry: Artificial Intelligence
Valuation: $75 billion
2. Didi Chuxing, China
Didi Chuxing also DiDi is known as the world’s leading mobile transportation platform. The company offers a full vareity of app-based transportation services for 550 million users across Asia, Latin America and Australia. Millions of drivers who find flexible work opportunities on the DiDi platform provide over 10 billion passenger trips a year. It is China’s leading online-to-offline company. Didi has also made strategic investments in several other startups including Grab, Ola, Uber, and Lyft. Bo Zhang and Wei Cheng established the company in 2012. Its mission is to build a better journey.
Investors: Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, and SoftBank.
Products and Services: Taxi, Express, Premier, Luxe, Bus, Designated Driving, Enterprise Solutions, Bike Sharing, E-bike Sharing, Automobile Solutions and Food delivery
Industry: Transportation
Valuation: $56 billion
3. Stripe, United States
Stripe is a payment platform that allows individuals and businesses to send and receive payments online. It is a global technology company that builds economic infrastructure for the internet. Patrick Collison and John Collison, brothers who founded Stripe in 2010, are among the world’s youngest billionaires. Businesses of each size whether small or big from new startups to public companies like Salesforce and Facebook use the company’s software to simply accept online payments and run complex global operations. Stripe’s mission is to help more companies get started and thrive and ultimately to grow the GDP of the internet.
Investors: capitalG and Khosla Ventures.
Products and Services: technical, fraud prevention, and banking infrastructure required to operate online payment systems.
Industry: Fintech
Valuation: $35.25 billion
4. SpaceX, United States
Billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX was founded in 2002. It is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company. It achieved the unicorn status in 2012. SpaceX aims to reduce space transportation costs and colonize Mars. It has dramatically reduced the cost of rocket launches by successfully landing the rockets vertically. SpaceX has developed several launch vehicles, the Starlink satellite constellation, and therefore the Dragon spacecraft.
Investors: Rothenberg Ventures and Founders Fund.
Products and Services: Several launch vehicles, Rocket engines, Dragon capsules, Starship (in development), Starlink ASDS landing platforms, Orbital rocket launch
Industry: Space Flight
Valuation: $33.3 billion
5. Airbnb, United States
Airbnb is an American online marketplace based in San Francisco , California, United States. Airbnb offers arrangement to its customers for lodging, primarily homestays, or tourism experiences. The company doesn't own any of the real estate listings, nor does it host events; it acts as a broker, receiving commissions from each booking. Airbnb’s valuations have taken a massive hit due to the coronavirus pandemic. The travel and vacation rental businesses have come to a halt. According to the Wall Street Journal, Airbnb’s valuation has dropped from $31 billion last year to $18 billion in the latest funding round. The company is also cutting its marketing budget.
Founded in 2008 by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb's mission is to help create a world where you can belong anywhere and where people can live in a place, instead of just traveling to it.
Investors: Greylock Partners, SV Angel, Sequoia Capital, Keith Rabois, Ashton Kutcher, Elad Gil, Jeremy Stoppelman, Y Ventures.
Products: Platform to accommodate guests with short-term lodging and tourism-related activities
Industry: Travel
Valuation: $18 billion
6. Kuaishou, China
Not many people in Western countries have heard of Kuaishou. It’s a Chinese short video sharing platform with over 200 million active users. In addition to China, it's also gained considerable popularity in other markets: it's topped the Google Play and Apple App Store "most downloaded" lists in eight countries outside of China. It is often mentioned as "Kwai" in overseas markets. It is one of the biggest competitors of TikTok in China. It achieved the unicorn status in January 2015.
Kuaishou was founded by Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao. On a mission to increase every individual’s happiness through big data and A.I. technology, Kuaishou was created based on the assumption that everyone’s lives are worth chronicling.
Investors: Kuaishou counts Baidu and Sequoia Capital
Products and Services: Sharing of short videos, photos and livestreams
Industry: Video Sharing
Valuation: $18 billion
7. Paytm, India
One97 is a leading payment service provider in India under the brand name Paytm. The fintech startup achieved the unicorn status in 2015. It has also launched Paytm Payments Bank and Paytm Mall. Founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm is a payment gateway that provides payment services to merchants and allow consumers to make seamless mobile payments from cards, bank accounts, and digital credit among others.
The company maintains an open culture where everyone is a hands-on contributor and feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. Paytm’s mission is to perue digital excellence, increase earning growth and to perdure cross selling opportunities.
Investors: Alibaba, Ant Financial, Intel Capital, and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway
Products: Paytm Mall, Paytm Money, Paytm Payments Bank, Gamepind, Paytm Smart Retail
Industry: E-commerce
Valuation: $16 billion
8. Epic Games, United States
Epic Games is an American computer game and software company that makes games and offers its game engine technology to other developers. Epic Games is the developer behind some of the world’s most popular games including Gears of War, Fortnite, and Infinity Blade. With the skyrocketing popularity of its games, it became a unicorn in October 2018. Founded by Mark Rein and Tim Sweeney in 1991, Epic Games is in the mission of creating fun games we want to play and building the art and tools we need to bring those games to life
Investors: Tencent Holdings, KKR, and Smash Ventures.
Products and Services: Unreal Engine, Epic Games Store, Unreal series, Gears of War series, Fortnite
Industry: Games
Valuation: $15 billion
9. DJI Innovations, China
DJI develops and manufactures mind-boggling and innovative drone and camera technology for commercial and recreational use. Shenzhen, widely considered China’s Silicon Valley, China-based DJI is one of the world’s leading makers of consumer drones and action cameras for photography and videography. DJI dominates the global civilian drone industry with over 70% market share. Founded in 2006 by Frank Wang, DJI’s mission is to making aerial photography, filmmaking and data collection more reliable and accessible for creators and innovators around the world.
DJI earns a revenue from direct access to the suppliers, raw materials, and young, creative talent pool necessary for sustained success. Drawing on these resources, they have grown from one small office in 2006 to a worldwide workforce. Their offices can now be found in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. As a private and operated company, DJI focuses on their own vision, supporting creative, commercial, and nonprofit applications of their technology.
Investors: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Accel, Maison Capital, LightHouse Capital Management, Aeternam Stella Financial Holdings
Products and Services: Huge variety of drones
Industry: Drones
Valuation: $18 billion
10. Grab, Singapore
Grab Holdings Inc., commonly referred to as Grab, is a multinational ride-hailing company based in Singapore. The company offers a range of services, including transport, on-demand delivery, consumer and financial services on a single mobile platform. Its valuation has remained roughly the same as last year. Grab has a strong presence in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar. It is also Southeast Asia’s first ‘Decacorn,’ a startup valued at $10 billion or more.
Founded in 2012 by Anthony Tan and Taan Hooi Ling the company’s mission is to “Drive Southeast Asia Forward” through innovation and grit. They do this by solving world problems that over 620 million people face across the region.
Investors: Softbank, Didi, Honda, CIC, Toyota
Products and Services: GrabTaxi, GrabCar, GrabHitch, GrabShare, GrabCoach, GrabShuttle, GrabShuttle Plus, GrabFamily, JustGrab, GrabNow, and GrabRental.
Industry: Transportation
Valuation: $14.3 billion
