New Unicorns Led By AI Companies In April, And Two Dropped Off

Five companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in April 2023 — the sixth month in a row for new unicorns to number in the single digits. Three of those companies are in the AI sector.

Of the five companies, three are U.S.-based. The U.K. and China each count for one new unicorn this past month.

Dropped

Two companies were dropped from the unicorn board.

Tonal raised $130 million in funding at a valuation between $550 million and $600 million according to the WSJ, which removed it from the unicorn board. The company previously raised funding at a $1.6 billion value in March 2021.

And Cybereason, an endpoint security company, raised $100 million led by SoftBank which valued the company at $350 million, a 90% discount from its prior funding in July 2021 which valued the company at $3.2 billion.

Earlier this year, online media company Vox Media received a lowered valuation in February 2023 at $500 million, down from $1 billion. In December 2022, online grocery retailer Oda was removed from the board with a new valuation of $350 million, down from $1.2 billion.

As unicorn companies continue to raise funding, we expect more down rounds and for companies to drop off the list.

We find around half of the unicorn board has raised funding since the beginning of 2022. Around 40% of the 1,400+ unicorn board companies last raised funding in 2020 and 2021. These companies will be coming back to raise funding from the private markets as startups typically raise funding every 18 months to two years.

Here are the new unicorns:

AI

New Jersey-based CoreWeave, a cloud infrastructure company that pivoted from Ethereum mining, raised a $221 million Series B led by Magnetar Capital. The funding valued the company at $2.2 billion.
Quantexa, a London-based data analytics company that uses AI, raised a $129 million Series E funding. The funding was led by Singapore-based Sovereign Wealth Fund GIC which valued the company at $1.8 billion.
San Francisco-based Replit, a developer platform that uses AI to complete code, raised a $97 million Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Energy

Nevada-based Ohmium, a hydrogen producer of green energy, raised a $250 million Series C funding which valued the company at $1 billion, led by TPG Rise Climate Fund.

Semiconductor

B&C Chemical , a materials chip maker based in China, raised an $87 million funding valuing the company at $1 billion. The funding was led by China Development Bank Capital and Zhongping Capital.

Unicorn queries

Methodology

The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are added to the Unicorn Board as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to The Exited Unicorn Board.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration: Dom Guzman