Fintech Leads For New Unicorns In August And Two Companies Prepare To Exit

Nine companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in August 2023, with three of those companies in financial services.

And two highly valued unicorns — Instacart, among the top 10 most valuable private companies, and Klaviyo, among the top 80 — plan to go public in September, a signal that the IPO market could open in 2024.

Of the nine companies that joined the Unicorn Board, two each are from the U.S. and China. South Africa, Israel, Korea, Hong Kong and India each had a company join the board last month.

August’s new unicorn count is not far below the 13 new unicorns minted in August 2022, but well below the 47 new unicorns born in August 2021.

August’s new unicorns

Let’s look at the companies that joined in August.

Fintech

• South Africa-based MTN Group Fintech, a subsidiary of telecommunications company MTN Group, raised funding from Mastercard that valued the mobile money service at $5.2 billion. The company says it processed $221 billion in transactions in 2022.
• Hong Kong-based Micro Connect, a platform that connects capital with small businesses in China, raised a $458 million Series C funding. The company was valued at $1.7 billion.
• Korea-based Korea Credit Data, a business management and payment services platform for merchants, raised a Morgan Stanley Tactical Value-led Series E of $75.7 million, which valued the company at $1 billion.

Semiconductors

• Shenzhen-based Runpeng Semiconductor, owned by CR Micro, raised $1.7 billion in funding from a group of state investors which will be used to build a wafer production factory.

Web3

• Palo Alto-based BitGo, a crypto custodian company, raised a $100 million Series C at a $1.75 billion valuation. Investors were not disclosed for this funding.

Sales And Marketing

• San Francisco-based sales market platform Apollo.io raised a $100 million Series D funding that valued the company at $1.6 billion. The funding was led by Bain Capital Ventures.

AI

• Tel Aviv-based large language model company AI21 Labs, an OpenAI competitor, raised a $155 million Series C that valued it at $1.4 billion. The funding was led by a group of investors including Walden Catalyst, Pitango VC, Samsung Next, B2venture, SCB 10X and Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua.

Delivery

• India-based fast grocery delivery company Zepto raised a Series E funding of $200 million that valued the company at $1.4 billion led by Goodwater Capital and StepStone Group.

Manufacturing

• Beijing-based cryogenic equipment manufacturer Fullcryo raised a $111 million Series C that valued the company at $1 billion.

Related Crunchbase unicorn queries

• The Crunchbase Private Unicorn Company List (1,471)
• Unicorns in the U.S. (723)
• Unicorns in Asia (468)
• European unicorns (198)
• Emerging unicorn leaderboard (381)
• Exited unicorns (434)

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