Okuzeka
Entrepreneurship & Startups vocabulary · Startup Ecosystem

Unicorn

Meaning in entrepreneurship & startups, with examples

/ˈjuːnɪkɔːrn/nounCommon term

In entrepreneurship & startups, unicorn means: A privately owned startup valued at one billion US dollars or more, a level that was very rare when the term became popular in 2013.

In Turkish: unicorn, tek boynuzlu at, milyar dolarlık girişim

How it is used

Used in the media and in investor talk: become a unicorn, the country's first unicorn. A decacorn is valued at 10 billion dollars or more. The word refers to private companies; after an IPO, people usually stop using it.

Example sentences

  1. The gaming company became a unicorn when its latest round valued it at 1.2 billion dollars.

  2. Not every startup needs to be a unicorn; many great companies are worth much less.

Common collocations

  • become a unicorn
  • unicorn status
  • unicorn startup
  • decacorn
  • valuationThe estimated value of a company, agreed between founders and investors in a funding round, which decides how much ownership investors get for their money.
  • venture capitalMoney that professional funds invest in young, fast-growing companies in exchange for equity, accepting high risk in the hope that a few big winners pay for the losses.
  • IPOInitial public offering: the first time a private company sells its shares to the public and lists them on a stock exchange.
  • exitThe way founders and investors turn their shares into cash, usually when the company is sold to another company or lists its shares on a stock exchange.

More terms: Startup Ecosystem

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: