While we often talk about the success of French startups that have managed to break through the symbolic billion valuation barrier, such as Doctolib, Sorare or Mirakl, this success should not make us forget that the champions of French innovation represent only 2.5% of the world's unicorns in 2022 (24 out of 1068). So where are the tech companies of tomorrow being imagined, a global overview !

Let's start by reminding ourselves what a unicorn is: we're not talking about the famous fairy creature here, but about startups, often focused on the tech sector, and whose valuation exceeds one billion dollars; a valuation that corresponds to a development potential considered to be significant.

If the first of these unicorns were born in California near the mythical Silicon Valley, they are now imagined almost everywhere in the world, and especially in Asia and Europe !

The United States : the birthplace of unicorns

It's no secret that the United States has long been a place synonymous with creation and innovation, especially in the tech segments and their many giants in the field including Meta, Google and Amazon. And even today, the USA can boast of having the most unicorns in the world, by far! Not less than one out of two unicorns is created in the US (554 out of 1068). Among the American successes we can count Space X, the space company founded by Elon Musk, or Stripe, the leader in financial services.

Rest of America : Significant development prospects

Canada and Brazil also stand out with numerous successes and a high growth dynamic, especially in the e-commerce, media, fintechs and security sectors. Brazilian unicorns include MadeiraMadeira, Hotmart, and Unico. In 2021, Brazil will become the 7th largest market in the world in terms of investment in startups. However, the South American continent is still lagging behind the rest of the world due to a weak incentive to entrepreneurship from government agencies such as ours.

Europe : a competitive pole with leaders

Europe is also an important laboratory for unicorn creation with 3 countries clearly standing out : France, which has 24 unicorns to date, Germany, which is slightly ahead with 26 unicorns, but also and above all the United Kingdom, which remains a major innovation hub, particularly in terms of fintech solutions, with no less than 43 unicorns to date. Among the British success stories are the well-known Deliveroo, Revolut, and Checkout.com, the leader in payment processing for B2B players, currently valued at over $15 billion.

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Israel : the start-up nation

Among the Middle East's innovation players, Israel is a kind of UFO from which twice as many unicorns have emerged as in France, with more than 60 companies valued at more than $1 billion, including the must-have driving assistance system Waze. The secret recipe of this country of 9 million souls is none other than a great culture of entrepreneurship, an economic support to innovation, as well as a defense economy focused on cybersecurity and high technologies.

Asia : great disparities

Asia is another major innovation hub where many unicorns are emerging. The Middle Kingdom is leading the way with more than 300 unicorns to date and a strong expertise in the technology and communication sectors, making it the second largest country in the world just behind the United States. Among the Chinese successes, we can count ByteDance, the parent company of tiktok, but also Xiaomi, Shein and Didi Chuxing (the equivalent of our Uber), the second global unicorn in terms of valuation. India is not to be outdone with nearly 70 unicorns by the end of 2021, followed by South Korea (15 unicorns), Singapore (10 unicorns) and Australia.

Africa : a gap that is still difficult to catch up with

As for Africa, it is still relatively far away from this entrepreneurial explosion with less than 20 unicorns listed in 2022, mainly concentrated in South Africa, Nigeria and Senegal. The continent has nevertheless seen the emergence of some great success stories such as the Nigerian Andela: a global placement network for software developers.

To sum up

This global overview and the disparities that can exist between the different regions and countries of the world reveals the need for an economically developed soil, abundant financing capacity (presence of private equity players), but also an incentive to entrepreneurship, to allow the emergence of tomorrow's unicorns.