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The 57 Startups That Became Unicorns in 2017

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Chart: The 57 Startups That Became Unicorns in 2017

57 New Unicorns in 2017

Collectively, they’re now worth $116.5B

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

For a startup, reaching the coveted $1 billion unicorn valuation is an important milestone – but as we’ve found out in recent years, it’s not necessarily a guarantee of future success.

In 2017, there were 57 startups that crossed the unicorn threshold, and they range from well-known companies, such as Reddit or Quora, to rapid-risers like China’s Toutiao (now valued at $20 billion), which has seemingly come out of nowhere.

Investors have conviction that these companies will provide the platforms and products of the future, and they are placing big bets on them to deliver.

Will they live up to the hype, or will they ultimately end up in the unicorn graveyard?

Unicorn Births by Year

With 57 new unicorns, this year ranks third overall in terms of births per year.

Year# of UnicornsNotable Unicorn Birth
20095BloomEnergy
20106Groupon
201115Airbnb
201213Pinterest
201320Uber
201462Slack
201581Vox Media
201643Compass
201757Reddit

While 57 unicorns in 2017 is still a high number, it’s also clear that the froth has died down from the unicorn bonanza that occurred in 2015.

Venture capitalists have clearly dialed it down a notch, re-focusing on the selective quality of investments rather than the overall quantity of big bets.

Notable Unicorns in 2017

Based on data from PitchBook, we’ve included the full list of unicorns in the chart today.

However, here are some that caught our eye:

Toutiao (China)
Valuation: $20 billion

Founded in 2012, Toutiao is the behemoth on this year’s new unicorn list. Based in Beijing, Toutiao is a news and information platform that focuses on recommendations using AI technology. The company pushes content to users based on previous user interactions as well as the detailed analysis of new content. The platform has 120 million active users and has also gone on a recent buying spree, acquiring names like Flipagram and Musical.ly.

Coinbase (United States)
Valuation: $1.6 billion

The cryptocurrency sector is exploding with growth, and Coinbase has been along for the ride since 2012. The most important crypto platform in the U.S. has such a strong influence in the sector, that the “Coinbase Effect” is now a talking point for traders everywhere. Whenever Coinbase introduces a cryptocurrency to its base of 10 million users, the added visibility and liquidity can make the price go bananas. It’s happened with Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash so far, and now every move by Coinbase is closely tracked by crypto power users and influencers.

Alisports (China)
Valuation: $1.0 billion

Alibaba’s foray into sports isn’t going unnoticed. In conjunction with Sina Corp (a Chinese telecom) and Yunfeng Capital Co (venture capital), Alibaba hopes that Alisports will carve out a huge chunk of the RMB 5 Trillion Chinese sports market. It’s also worth noting that Alisports sees e-sports as having huge potential, and as a central piece of its platform.

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The World’s Biggest Cloud Computing Service Providers

Cloud computing service providers generated $270 billion in revenues last year, concentrated among a few giants.

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This tree map shows the biggest cloud computing service providers globally by market share.

The World’s Biggest Cloud Computing Service Providers

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Today, the three largest cloud computing service providers command 66% of the global market.

Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have generated billions in revenues through their cloud infrastructure that provide the computing power companies need to store data. What’s more, most AI models are run on the cloud, creating a surge in computing demand for cloud providers.

The above graphic shows the largest cloud providers globally, based on data from Synergy Research Group.

Breaking Down the Cloud Market

Here are the world’s top cloud computing service providers based on enterprise revenues as of the fourth quarter of 2023:

ProviderCountryMarket Share Q4 2023
Amazon Web Services🇺🇸 U.S.31%
Microsoft Azure🇺🇸 U.S.24%
Google Cloud🇺🇸 U.S.11%
Alibaba Cloud🇨🇳 China4%
Salesforce🇺🇸 U.S.3%
IBM Cloud🇺🇸 U.S.2%
Oracle🇺🇸 U.S.2%
Tencent Cloud🇨🇳 China2%
Other🌐 Other21%

With 31% of the global market share, Amazon’s cloud division posted $24.2 billion in revenues over the quarter.

AWS is a major cash engine for the company, but growth slowed over 2023 as enterprises and startups cut back on tech spending. Annual sales growth compared to the same quarter last year grew by 13%—far below competitors Microsoft and Google, whose cloud divisions grew by 30% and 26%, respectively.

As we can see, U.S. firms make up the lion’s share of the market, while China’s Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud together comprise 5% of the global share.

The AI Boom and the Cloud

Given that a significant chunk of AI models are run on the cloud, the industry may be positioned to see greater demand as momentum accelerates.

In fact, newer AI systems are as much as 10 to 100 times larger than older models. In line with this, major cloud providers are seeing high demand for cloud services to allow companies across financial to manufacturing sectors to run large language models on their platforms.

Today, 98% of companies globally rely on the cloud for at least one part of their business applications, which may present a market opportunity for the industry as advancements in AI continue to grow.

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