The era of Tech Unicorns: companies to watch in 2018
Tags: technologyindustry, innovation, tech, technology
Published: 2017-11-27 07:46:46

---
title: "The era of Tech Unicorns: companies to watch in 2018"
published: true
tags: Technology industry ,Innovation,tech,Technology
canonical_url: https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/tech-unicorns/
---

The term of Unicorns has been known only for several years, but is already one of the most used word in the tech world. So why is that? Apart from that, we will also take a look at the most well-known & the most valuable Tech Unicorns of 2017, and see the predictions for the year 2018.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

## WHY ARE UNICORNS CALLED UNICORN? A LIST OF NEW EXPRESSIONS

&nbsp;

In the&nbsp;business world, **Unicorns** are those private companies or startups with an estimated valuation of more than $1 billion. Several years ago it could be named as a myth to be a startup company with a billion dollars profit, but now it is&nbsp;more and more common.&nbsp;

Firstly, the term was used by Aileen Lee, venture capitalist and founder of CowboyVC, a seed stage venture capital fond that is based in Palo Alto, California. In her article, “[Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning From Billion-Dollar Startups](https://techcrunch.com/2013/11/02/welcome-to-the-unicorn-club/)“, she watched&nbsp;tech startups founded in the previous decade and settled the boundary lines for “Unicorn Club” members.&nbsp;

Moreover, she has determined that on that time, 3 years ago, in the&nbsp;exclusive Unicorn club were included only 39 members,” the top .o7 % that ever reached $1 billion valuation: Dropbox, Tumblr, Facebook, Youtube, Palo Alto Networks, Yelp, FireEye, Groupon, ServiceNow, Linkedin, Gilt, etc.

However, according to [Techcrunch](https://techcrunch.com/unicorn-leaderboard/) the total number of Unicorn companies, for today, is already more than 267.

Another exciting term for your lexicon that is related to Unicorns – **Decacorns,** &nbsp;companies that achieved a&nbsp;$10 billion valuation and automatically moved to the new level.&nbsp;

Let’s start our list with top and most promising tech unicorns nowadays:&nbsp;

&nbsp;

## Top 10 tech decacorns of 2017

&nbsp;

Take a look at&nbsp;the main&nbsp;decacorns of 2017 according to [Techcrunch](https://techcrunch.com/unicorn-leaderboard/):

&nbsp;

1. [Uber](https://www.uber.com/)  
San Francisco, California  
Transportation Services  
Valuation: $62 billion

&nbsp;

2. [ANT Financial  
](https://www.antfin.com/index.htm?locale=en_US)Xihu District, Hangzhou, China  
Financial services  
Valuation: $60 billion

&nbsp;

3.&nbsp;[Didi Chuxing  
](http://www.didichuxing.com/en/)Beijing, China  
Consumer Internet  
Valuation: $50 billion

&nbsp;

4. [Xiaomi  
](http://xiaomi.com/)Beijing, China  
Hardware  
Valuation: $45 billion

&nbsp;

5. [Airbnb](https://airbnb.com/)  
San Francisco  
Lodging Services  
Valuation: $31 billion

&nbsp;

6.&nbsp;[SpaceX](http://www.spacex.com/)  
Howthorne, California  
Aerospace and defence  
Valuation: $21 billion

&nbsp;

7. [Palantir](https://www.palantir.com/)&nbsp;  
Palo Alto, California  
Data Analytics Software  
Valuation: $20 billion

&nbsp;

8. [Toutiao  
](https://www.toutiao.com/)Beijing, China  
Consumer internet  
Valuation: $20 billion

&nbsp;

9. [Wework](https://www.wework.com/)  
New York City, New York, United States  
Real Estate  
Valuation: $20 billion

&nbsp;

10. [Lufax](https://www.lu.com/)  
Shanghai, China  
Financial services  
Valuation: $18 billion

..and many-many [others](https://techcrunch.com/unicorn-leaderboard/) from all over the world.

&nbsp;

## Top 10 tech&nbsp;unicorns of 2017

1. [Stripe](https://stripe.com/es)  
San Francisco, California, United States  
Financial services  
Valuation: $9 billion

&nbsp;

2. [Spotify](https://www.spotify.com/es/)  
Stockholm, Sweden  
Consumer internet, music  
Valuation: $8 billion

&nbsp;

3. [Zhong An](https://www.zhongan.com/)  
Shanghai, China  
Financial services  
Valuation: $8 billion

&nbsp;

4. [Dji](https://www.dji.com/)  
Shenzhen, China  
Financial services  
Valuation: $8 billion

&nbsp;

5. [Koubei](https://www.koubei.com/)  
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China  
Search Engine  
Valuation: $8 billion

&nbsp;

6.&nbsp;[One97 Communications](http://one97.com/)  
Shenzhen, China  
Financial services  
Valuation: $8 billion

&nbsp;

7.&nbsp;[Cainiao Logistics](http://global.cainiao.com/)  
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China  
Transportation  
Valuation: $7 billion&nbsp;

&nbsp;

8. [Lyft](https://www.lyft.com/)  
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China  
Transportation  
Valuation: $7 billion

&nbsp;

9.&nbsp;[Jiedaibao](https://www.jiedaibao.com/)  
Beijing, Beijing, China  
Financial services  
Valuation: $7 billion

&nbsp;

10.&nbsp;[JD Finance](https://global.jd.com/)  
Beijing, Beijing, China  
Financial services  
Valuation: $7 billion

&nbsp;

..and&nbsp;many-many&nbsp;[others](https://techcrunch.com/unicorn-leaderboard/)&nbsp;from all over the world.

&nbsp;

## Companies that might potentially become tech unicorns in 2018?

&nbsp;

I would like to mention that this list is based on latest news, ventures, investors and ratings published online.&nbsp;Generally, the new year is expected to be even more successful on new tech Unicorns of the year.&nbsp;

This year [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2017/09/26/the-next-billion-dollar-startups-2017/#5a3ae1a64447) asked venture firms which companies they thought most likely to hit the billion-dollar mark soon. Then we cut that list down to a final 10.

So who is next on the list?

&nbsp;

**The next billion-dollar startups or tech unicorns in 2018:**

&nbsp;

1.[Qualtrics](https://www.qualtrics.com)

Is one of the top 5 startups that probably will go&nbsp;public ([IPO](https://www.google.es/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiDkZOSrrzRAhXDvhQKHS25BZEQFggqMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.investopedia.com%2Fterms%2Fi%2Fipo.asp&usg=AFQjCNHmEEmznm8ZKrvYmsDhZxJiKcEBVg)) in 2017. Qualtrics is the&nbsp;world’s leading research and insights platform that offers organisations a full control over their customer experience programs and collects market’s and employee’s datas.

2.[AppDynamics](https://www.appdynamics.com/)

AppDynamics is a privately held application performance management and IT Operations Analytics company based in San Francisco. Moreover, the company was named San Francisco’s&nbsp;Best Technology Work Culture at the [2016 Annual Timmy Awards](http://blogs.techinmotionevents.com/thetimmyawards/).

3.[Docker](https://www.docker.com/?ref=breakoutlist)

Every Developer knows Docker as a container service, probably one of the most popular ones. Meanwhile, Docker rose&nbsp;another $ million in funding.

4.[Zymergen](https://www.zymergen.com)

The 3-year old biotech company that unlocks&nbsp;the power of biology to shape the world around us.

5.[Thread](https://www.thread.com)

Fashion tech startup that tries to solve the problem of styling at scale. They offer you to get an expert’s help or opinion to make your style better. What is significant is that Thread plays with three things: a clever&nbsp;mixture of human stylists, AI assistants and tools that let both work together to deliver a semi-personalised collection of outfit ideas to every&nbsp;single&nbsp;customer.

6.[Flexport](https://www.flexport.com)

Flexport is one of those exciting startups that has great chances this year. It&nbsp;is a traditional freight forwarding service that arranges your goods to be transported&nbsp;with,&nbsp;providing visibility&nbsp;and control over your entire supply chain through software.

7.[Rubrik](https://www.rubrik.com)

Named as Forbes’ Next Billion Dollars startup, Rubrik&nbsp;is a Cloud Data Management that delivers automated backup, instant recovery, offsite replication, and data archival in a simple, scale out platform built for hybrid cloud.

&nbsp;8.[OYO Rooms](https://www.oyorooms.com/)

An Indian virtual hospitality startup&nbsp;&nbsp;that owns and operates as well as aggregates standardised hotel rooms, founded&nbsp;by Ritesh Agarwal. OYO is kind of an aggregator, like Uber. Many experts have predicted that it&nbsp;will be one of&nbsp;the next unicorns of this year.

9.[DigitalOcean](https://www.digitalocean.com/)

A cloud computing designed for developers. The company is already named the coolest cloud startup of the year.

&nbsp;

_We will be posting more articles about things to keep an eye on in 2018 in terms of technology and innovation, if you are interested in it, we recommend you to subscribe to our&nbsp;[monthly newsletter](http://eepurl.com/bQUwC5). Have a great day!_

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