Analysis: 142 startups, including 78 from the US and 22 from China, became unicorns in 2019, down from 158 in 2018; unicorns raised $85.1B vs. $139B in 2018
Gené Teare / Crunchbase News :
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes out a cooling year at the top of the private market. After global unicorn funding ran at record pace through mid-2018 on its way past 2017's $98B, Crunchbase's full-year count shows the cycle turning: 142 new unicorns versus 158 in 2018, and $85.1B raised against $139B the year before.
The geographic mix shifted too. China minted 97 unicorns in 2018 alone, but only 22 of 2019's global class came from there, while the US supplied 78 of 142. The later coverage shows this wasn't a permanent slowdown — 166 new unicorns had already been created by May 2021 — making 2019 the trough between two booms.
First-order effects
- Fewer startups crossed the $1B line in 2019, and those that did raised materially less — $85.1B across the cohort versus $139B for 2018's — meaning thinner war chests for the newest unicorns entering 2020.
- China's pipeline contracted sharply relative to its own recent output, leaving the US (78 of 142) carrying the majority of global unicorn formation.
Second-order effects
- With fewer new entrants competing for late-stage capital, dollars concentrated into bigger checks on existing names — the dynamic that later produced thirty $10B+ decacorns in 2021 against five in 2019.
- Investors who scaled back in the 2019 lull re-entered aggressively in the recovery; by 2021 Tiger Global had backed twice as many unicorns as Sequoia Capital, per Crunchbase.
Third-order effects
- If the 2018–2021 arc holds, unicorn creation is cyclical rather than secular — a funding-cycle phenomenon that compresses in downturns and overshoots in recoveries.
- The US-China split widened structurally: from near-parity in 2018 to a 2021 picture where the US added 154 unicorns since October 2020 while China added just nine, pointing to diverging private-market ecosystems rather than a shared cycle.
The trend: Unicorn formation moves in venture-funding cycles — dipping in 2019, then surging past prior records by 2021 — while its geography tilts decisively toward the US.