Meet The New Unicorns Minted In October 2022

Fourteen companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in October as late-stage funding plummeted worldwide.

The new unicorns together added $36 billion in value to the board, according to an analysis of Crunchbase data. Financial services led the way with three new companies joining the list. Web3 and artificial intelligence startups were runners-up by company counts.

Of the 14 companies, seven raised funding in 2021. Risk insurance platform Vesttoo announced seed through Series B funding in 2021. And AI content creation company Jasper was founded last year as well, making the startup the youngest company among this cohort.

Here are the newest companies valued in private financing at a billion dollars or more in October 2022.

Financial services

• Tokyo-based online brokerage company Rakuten Securities, a subsidiary of e-commerce company Rakuten, raised $552 million at a valuation of $2.8 billion from Mizuho Financial Group .
• Indonesia-based FinAccel, parent of buy now, pay later startup Kredivo, raised a $140 million Series D valuing it at $1.7 billion. FinAccel raised the round, led by India-based global asset manager Mirae Asset, in lieu of going public via a special-purpose acquisition company.
• Insurance risk management Vesttoo, headquartered in Tel Aviv, raised an $80 million Series C led by Mouro Capital. The company was valued at $1 billion. With this round, Vesttoo’s valuation tripled from that of its Series B raised in late 2021, also led by Mouro as well as MS&AD Ventures.

Web3

• New York-based cryptocurrency exchange Uniswap raised a $165 million Series B led by cryptocurrency investor Polychain. The funding valued the company at  $1.7 billion.
• Blockchain ledger company Celestia, based in Liechtenstein, raised a $55 million Series A led by Bain Capital Crypto and Polychain at a $1 billion valuation.

AI

• AI content creation company Jasper from Austin, Texas, raised a $125 million Series A led by Insight Partners, valuing it at $1.5 billion. The company previously raised $6 million in seed funding in June 2021 led by Foundation Capital.
• London-based image creation from text service Stability AI raised a $101 million first funding at a $1 billion valuation. This funding was led by Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners and  O’Shaughnessy Asset Management.

Transportation

• Guangzhou-based GAC Aion New Energy Automobile raised a $2.5 billion Series A strategic investment which valued it at $14.3 billion, making it the most highly valued private electric vehicle company in China.

Software

• Insight Partners and TA Associates invested in Indiana-based ERP software company Aptean, which is valued at $3.6 billion. The funding amount was not disclosed. Vista Equity Partners sold its stake in the company.

Mining

• Copper extraction company Jetti Resources, based in Boulder, Colorado, raised a $100 million Series D from T. Rowe Price that valued the company at $2.5 billion. The company is venture-backed, with Los Angeles-based KittyHawk Ventures and Kleiner Perkins listed among its investors.

Real estate

• New-York based Bilt Rewards, a reward program for renters, raised a $150 million funding led by Brooklyn-based early-growth equity firm Left Lane Capital, which valued it at $1.5 billion. Kairos HQ from New York is an early backer of Bilt Rewards.

Health care

• Medical device company Equashield from New York State raised a secondary financing led by Nordic Capital which valued it at $1.3 billion. The company builds medical devices that protect health care workers from exposure to hazardous drugs.

Hardware

• Wearables and audio tech company boAt from New Delhi raised $60 million from existing investors and delayed its IPO. The funding valued the company at $1.2 billion.

HR

• Barcelona-based Factorial raised a Series C funding of $120 million. Led by Atomico, this latest round valued the human resource management startup at $1 billion. The funding is double the valuation of Factorial’s Series B raised a year ago, which was led by Tiger Global.

Crunchbase Pro queries listed for this article

All Crunchbase Pro queries are dynamic, with results updating over time. They can be adapted by location and/or timeframe for analysis.

Unicorn queries

• Unicorn leaderboard (1,412)
• Unicorns in the U.S. (703)
• Unicorns in Asia (439)
• European unicorns (193)
• Emerging unicorn leaderboard (352)
• Exited unicorns (407)
• Unicorn fundings in 2022 ($117B)

Methodology

Funding rounds included in this report are seed, angel, venture, corporate-venture and private-equity rounds in venture-backed companies. This reflects data in Crunchbase as of Nov. 4, 2022.

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.

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

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