Bloomberg (July 5)
“If Masayoshi Son won’t invest in Japan, why should you? His $100 billion Vision Fund is noticeably absent on its home turf. That speaks volumes about the health of the country’s startup scene.” Although “Shinzo Abe’s government aims to produce 20 unicorns by 2023. The chances of pulling that off are sobering.” Japan currently only has two “while the U.S. has 179 unicorns, China 93, and India 18.”
Tags: Abe, China, Government, Invest, Japan, Son, Startups, U.S., Unicorns, Vision Fund
The Economist (April 20)
“Investors often describe the world of business in terms of animals, such as bears, bulls, hawks, doves and dogs. Right now, mere ponies are being presented as unicorns: privately held tech firms worth over $1bn that are supposedly strong and world-beating—miraculous almost.” Except they’re not. Many so-called unicorns lack effective business models. In fact, “a dozen unicorns that have listed, or are likely to, posted combined losses of $14bn last year. Their cumulative losses are $47bn.”
Tags: Business models, Investors, Losses, Miraculous, Unicorns, World-beating
Financial Times (August 16)
“It is only five years since so-called unicorns—private tech companies valued at $1bn or more—sprang on to the public consciousness. They were succeeded by “decacorns”—$10bn and up. What comes next could put all this in the shade.”
The Week (April 2)
By any measure, Uber has been having a terrible year. Some have posited it could threaten the tech bubble. “Uber is by far the most valuable of the 187 ‘unicorn’ startups valued at $1 billion or more, despite losing at least $1.2 billion in the first half of 2016.” But Uber is unlikely to spark a chain reaction. “The tech industry’s funding sources are more diversified than they were in the original dot-com bubble, and the definition of what makes a ‘technology company’ is also much broader. Odds are, investors will see Uber’s flaws as an isolated case of bad corporate governance, not evidence that they shouldn’t be investing in startups.”
Tags: Chain reaction, Corporate governance, Diversified, Dot-com bubble, Funding, Investor, Isolated case, Startups, Tech bubble, Terrible, Uber, Unicorns
The Economist (November 28)
We may be witnessing “the rise and fall of the unicorns” as unlisted technology companies begin to learn that valuations don’t always go up. “Technology companies are unlikely to experience a meltdown as severe as the housing crisis, but an industry that only yesterday was all promise and optimism is showing signs of cooling.”
Tags: Housing crisis, Meltdown, Optimism, Technology, Unicorns, Unlisted, Valuations
