Meet The 34 New Unicorn Companies Minted In May 2022

Gené Teare @geneteare

Even as global venture funding fell for the second consecutive month in 2022, 34 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in May, raising a median of $118 million in their latest funding.

This cohort of new unicorn companies added $57 billion in value to the board, according to a Crunchbase News analysis.

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One company, Seychelles-based crypto exchange KuCoin, catapulted directly to a decacorn value as a new unicorn.

Let’s meet the companies:

Financial services

Paddle, a London-based payments infrastructure company for SaaS companies, raised a $200 million Series D led by KKR.
New York-based Clear Street, a provider of infrastructure for capital markets, raised a $165 million Series B led by Prysm Capital.
Auto-refinance company Caribou, based in Washington, D.C., raised a $115 million Series C led by Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs also led its Series B funding of $50 million.
Tokyo-based Opn raised a $120 million Series C. The company provides digital solutions for e-commerce payments.
Dock, a Brazil-based company that integrates card issuing and core banking services, raised a $110 million private equity round led by Lightrock and Silver Lake Waterman.
New York-based Unit, which helps companies integrate fintech features into their products, raised a $100 million Series C led by Insight Partners.
TransferMate, an Irish-based B2B payment platform, raised a $70 million Series C led by pension fund RPMI Railpen.
Bangalore-based Open, a neobank for small business, raised a $50 million Series D led by financial services firm IIFL Finance.

Energy and sustainability

Group14 Technologies, a Woodinville, Washington-based battery materials company, raised a $400 million Series C led by Porsche.
Washington, D.C.-based Arcadia, a company decarbonizing the grid, raised a $200 million Series E led by J.P. Morgan.
Polarium, a Stockholm-based developer of lithium batteries for telecom, raised a $97 million funding led by pension fund AMF.

Privacy and security

San Francisco-based email security company Abnormal Security raised a $210 million Series C valued at $4 billion led by Insight Partners.
Semperis, an enterprise identity protection provider based out of New Jersey, raised a $200 million Series C led by KKR.
Oakland-based Teleport, which provides engineers secure access to infrastructure, raised a $110 million Series C led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
Material Security, an email security company based in the Bay Area, raised a $100 million Series C led by Founders Fund.

Cryptocurrency

Seychelles-based KuCoin, a cryptocurrency exchange, raised a Jump Crypto-led $150 million Series B valued at $10 billion.
Babel Finance, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency financial service provider, raised an $80 million Series B valued at $2 billion. The round was led by 10T Holdings and Jeneration Capital.
Crypto trading platform Talos, based out of New York, raised a $105 million Series B led by General Atlantic.

Professional Services

Velocity Global, a Denver-based global HR management and payment platform, raised a $400 million Series B led by Eldridge and Norwest Venture Partners.
Bay Area-based Glean, a work assistant for companies that connect their apps, raised a $100 million Series C led by Sequoia Capital.
New Jersey-based iCIMS, which helps companies manage talent, raised funding led by TA Associates. The amount of the funding was not disclosed.

Data and analytics

Data observability platform Monte Carlo, based in San Francisco, raised a $135 million Series D led by IVP.
Imply, a Bay Area-based real-time analytics company, raised a $100 million Series D led by Thoma Bravo.

Real estate

Habi, a Colombia-based real estate platform, raised a $200 million Series C led by Homebrew and SoftBank Latin America Ventures.
Florida-based design samples company Material Bank, raised a $175 million Series D led by Brookfield Growth.

Transportation

Electric vehicle builder Rimac Group, based in Croatia, raised a $537 million Series D valued at $2.1 billion. The round was led by Goldman Sachs and the SoftBank Vision Fund.
Tel Aviv-based public transportation platform Optibus raised a $100 million Series D. Investors in the round include Insight Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Commerce and shopping

Seoul-based OHouse, an e-commerce platform for home goods, raised a $182 million Series D. Investors include Vertex Growth Fund and SoftBank Ventures Asia.
Mashgin, a Bay Area-based touchless checkout system, raised a $63 million Series B led by New Enterprise Associates.

Software

New York-based Hugging Face, a machine-learning models company, raised a Lux Capital-led $100 million Series C valued at $2 billion.
Zip, a company based out of San Francisco that helps employees procure business services, raised a $43 million Series B led by Y Combinator Continuity Fund.

Biotechnology

Bay Area-based Ultima Genomics, which maps the human genome, came out of stealth with a $600 million funding—the largest for this list of new unicorns. Its investors include Andreessen Horowitz and Founders Fund.

Logistics

Nowports, a Mexico-based freight forwarder, raised a $150 million Series C led by SoftBank Latin America Ventures.

Hardware

Oslo-based reMarkable, a paper tablet company, raised a funding having sold 1 million devices. Neither the investors nor the amount were disclosed.

By the numbers

The earliest funding stage for these companies to reach a billion-dollar valuation was at Series B, when seven of May’s new unicorns were minted. All three companies in crypto became unicorns at Series B.

And of this list, climate tech company Arcadia has the highest count of investors, at 31.

The average funding round raised over time for these new entrants was $261 million.

Active investors

Lead investors in these companies include venture, PE firms and hedge funds as well as pension funds such as RPMI Railpen and AMF, and corporate investors like Porsche.

The most active investors in this cohort of companies are Tiger Global with seven portfolio companies, Insight Partners with five companies, and accelerator Y Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz, each with four portfolio companies.

Tiger Global was the most active in round counts, having invested in 13 funding rounds, an indicator that the firm has invested in all of these portfolio companies in advance of their $1 billion valuations.

Illustration: Dom Guzman