PitchBook: nearly 340 startups have privately raised money at $1B+ valuations this year, more than 3x the total from last year
SPACs and venture capitalists are plowing money into startups at record rates, looking past worries about lofty valuations — Investors are defying … Tweets: @julianklymochko and @amrithramkumar Tweets: Julian klymochko.eth / @julianklymochko : It's a unicorn stampede Nearly 340 new unicorn startups—or about one each day—have privately raised money at valuations north of $1 billion this year, more than triple the total from last year These will help feed the 571 SPACs searching for a deal https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/... Amrith Ramkumar / @amrithramkumar : “There's just so much money in the world chasing growth”—SPACs and venture capitalists are plowing money into startups at record rates despite falling share prices. With @eliotwb: https://www.wsj.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
2021 closed out a funding peak at every tier of the private stack: US seed and early-stage startups raised $93B through December 15, up from $52B in 2020, non-VC money participated in a record 42% of tech deals in Q2, and thirty startups crossed into decacorn territory, triple the 2019 count. The unicorn number is the widest layer of that pyramid.
What makes PitchBook's count matter is who is on the buy side: Julian Klymochko points out the nearly 340 new unicorns will help feed roughly 571 SPACs still searching for targets, while CB Insights' fuller-year tally puts global VC at a record $621B and the unicorn population up 69% to 959. Record issuance met record acquisition appetite — and both sides priced off each other.
First-order effects
- Founders raising at $1B+ are locking in paper marks set partly by non-VC crossover money that hit a record share of deal participation in Q2 — capital less bound by fund-lifecycle discipline than traditional VCs.
- The 571 SPACs hunting deals gain a deep pool of fresh acquisition targets whose valuations were just set privately, shortening the usual gap between private raise and exit candidacy.
Second-order effects
- With late-stage prices bid up by SPAC demand and crossover funds, capital migrates earlier: seed-stage dollars nearly doubled 2020's total, pricing the next cohort under the same froth.
- SPAC sponsors and VCs competing for the same startup targets compresses whatever discount private valuations traditionally carried relative to public comparables, raising the cost of every subsequent round.
Third-order effects
- The 2025 data shows how this cohort aged: CB Insights counts a record [[a:882556|1,200 VC-backed unicorns still awaiting an IPO or acquisition, and Carta finds fewer than 30% of 2021 unicorns have raised funding since]] — the 2021 minting rate outran the exit pipeline that was supposed to validate it.
- If exits continue to lag issuance at this ratio, the $1B mark functions as a fundraising credential rather than a liquidity milestone, forcing either down-round repricing or multi-year holds for the investors who marked these rounds.
The trend: Private markets are minting billion-dollar companies faster than public markets can absorb them, widening the valuation-to-liquidity gap that now defines the post-2021 venture cycle.