Markets
Ranked: Who Made the Most U.S. Unicorn Acquisitions Since 1997?
Who Made the Most U.S. Unicorn Acquisitions Since 1997?
The elusive unicorn is no longer a myth in the U.S. startup world, with over a thousand private startups reaching a $1 billion valuation in the last 25 years.
While some of these startups eventually go public and go on to become household names, it’s also common for founders to exit through mergers and acquisitions (M&A), by selling their startup to another organization. In fact, over half of the 1,110 unicorns in the U.S. have made some sort of an exitโeither through an IPO, a direct listing, a SPAC or an acquisitionโsince 1997.
Ilya Strebulaev, professor of finance and private equity at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, brings us this visualization featuring the companies that acquired the most unicorns over the last 25 years.
Strebulaev’s database lists 137 private and public companies along with PE firms whoโve acquired at least one unicorn since 1997, totaling 177 acquisitions.
The Biggest U.S. Unicorn Acquirers
In total, 27 companies have acquired two or more unicorns, accounting for nearly 38% of all acquisitions. 110 companies have acquired just one unicorn.
Company/ PE Group | Acquired |
---|---|
Meta | 5 |
Cisco | 4 |
Alphabet | 4 |
Amazon | 3 |
Nortel Networks | 3 |
Bristol-Myers Squibb | 3 |
Johnson & Johnson | 3 |
Merck & Co. | 3 |
AT&T | 3 |
Recruit Holdings | 2 |
IBM | 2 |
Microsoft | 2 |
Thoma Bravo | 2 |
Headspace Health | 2 |
Allergan | 2 |
Qualcomm | 2 |
Rakuten | 2 |
Adobe Systems | 2 |
Eli Lilly | 2 |
Vista Equity | 2 |
Dell | 2 |
Uber | 2 |
Oracle | 2 |
Nestle | 2 |
Lucent Technologies | 2 |
Broadcom Corporation | 2 |
GlaxoSmithKline | 2 |
BlackBerry | 2 |
Searchlight Capital Partners | 1 |
Singtel | 1 |
Vmware | 1 |
Internet Capital Group | 1 |
Hellman & Friedman | 1 |
AppLovin | 1 |
Ciena Corporation | 1 |
Redback Networks | 1 |
Aether Systems | 1 |
Fresenius Medical Care | 1 |
Electronic Arts | 1 |
Genentech | 1 |
Inktomi | 1 |
VistaJet | 1 |
Ariba | 1 |
Keurig Dr Pepper | 1 |
Fullscreen | 1 |
Sycamore Networks | 1 |
Novartis | 1 |
TP ICAP | 1 |
eBay | 1 |
DoveBid | 1 |
McKesson | 1 |
IG Group | 1 |
Empower Retirement | 1 |
Dentsply Sirona | 1 |
Novo Nordisk | 1 |
Centocor | 1 |
Bausch Health | 1 |
Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma | 1 |
Medtronic | 1 |
Mubadala Investment Company | 1 |
Cint Group | 1 |
Qualtrics | 1 |
Rocket Companies | 1 |
Saudi Arabia's PIF | 1 |
Prosus | 1 |
Cigna | 1 |
One Medical | 1 |
Exact Sciences | 1 |
Teladoc Health | 1 |
Ericsson | 1 |
SoFi | 1 |
PayPal Holdings | 1 |
Bayer | 1 |
Monsanto | 1 |
AMD | 1 |
Aurora | 1 |
Marvell International | 1 |
Bill.com | 1 |
ADC | 1 |
Dealertrack | 1 |
Cox Enterprises | 1 |
L'Oreal | 1 |
AstraZeneca | 1 |
Workday | 1 |
Iron Mountain | 1 |
Splunk | 1 |
Stonepeak | 1 |
American Express | 1 |
OfferUp | 1 |
VMware | 1 |
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan | 1 |
Groupon | 1 |
Allstate Corporation | 1 |
1 | |
SAP | 1 |
Mindbody | 1 |
Mallinckrodt | 1 |
Walmart | 1 |
GMT Communications | 1 |
Brightstar Capital | 1 |
Enterprise Holdings | 1 |
Healtheon Corporation | 1 |
Apple | 1 |
PetSmart | 1 |
Epiphany | 1 |
Rice Energy | 1 |
Unilever | 1 |
SBA Communications | 1 |
Bridgepoint Advisers | 1 |
Aurea | 1 |
Vector Capital | 1 |
FireEye | 1 |
Littlejohn & Co | 1 |
Alexion | 1 |
SoftBank Investment Advisers | 1 |
Francisco Partners | 1 |
Betfair Group | 1 |
Shift Technologies | 1 |
Hudson's Bay | 1 |
Illumina | 1 |
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | 1 |
AbbVie | 1 |
Salesforce | 1 |
Hanergy | 1 |
Teleflex | 1 |
Twilio | 1 |
Okta | 1 |
Celgene | 1 |
NantCell | 1 |
VMware & EMC Corp | 1 |
Intuit | 1 |
Yahoo! | 1 |
Netmarble Games | 1 |
F5 Networks | 1 |
Roche | 1 |
Centerbridge Partners | 1 |
Total | 177 |
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, leads the pack with the most unicorn acquisitions in the U.S., purchasing five unicorns since its founding in 2008, including: Kustomer, WhatsApp, Instagram, CTRL-Labs, and Oculus VR.
Notably, WhatsAppโwhich closed at a purchase price of $19 billionโwas Metaโs most expensive acquisition yet, over nine times their next most expensive purchase, Oculus VR.
Meanwhile, Alphabet (now the parent company of Google) and Cisco are tied in second place with four U.S. unicorn acquisitions each.
- Alphabet: YouTube, Actifio, Nest Labs, Looker Data Sciences
- Cisco: Cerent, Duo Security, AppDynamics, Jasper
Unlike its Big Tech peers, Apple has only made the one U.S. unicorn acquisition: navigation company HopStop that helped bring public transit features to Apple Maps.
Meanwhile, 56% of acquirers received venture capital funding of their own when they were private companies. This includes pack leaders like Meta, Cisco, Alphabet, and Amazon.
Are Unicorn Acquisitions Slowing Down?
Unicorn acquisitions are driven by two factors: the rate at which new unicorns are minted, and the climate for M&A transactions more broadly.
To begin with, the minting of new unicorns is largely influenced by the venture funding environment. Funding opportunities increase when interest rates go down, which makes riskier, venture-scale ideas more enticing. During the last decade of persistently low interest rates up until 2022, unicorns flourished more than ever.
Meanwhile, as tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta began seeing outsized profits in the 2010s, venture investors and their LPs looked to get in on the ground floor of tech startups that could emulate their success, often paying premium valuations for the chance. Simultaneously, big tech looked to acquire unicorns themselves, both to augment their business lines and to squash potential competitors.
However, the era of โeasy moneyโ may have come to an end, and privately-held startups have seen valuations drop in recent years. This means that for the next little whileโat least until monetary policy stops tighteningโunicorns could become a rarer sight.
Unicorn acquisitions may also see a similar fate. Persistent inflation and the government anti-trust push are just some of the other factors that have led to VC-backed startup acquisitions falling to their lowest quarterly levels in a decade. The more expensive the valuation, the harder to find a buyer, which means that some unicorns may even lose their $1 billion tag even when they do get acquired.

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.
Markets
Mapped: The Growth in House Prices by Country
Global house prices were resilient in 2022, rising 6%. We compare nominal and real price growth by country as interest rates surged.

Mapped: The Growth in House Prices by Country
This was originally posted on Advisor Channel. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on financial markets that help advisors and their clients.
Global housing prices rose an average of 6% annually, between Q4 2021 and Q4 2022.
In real terms that take inflation into account, prices actually fell 2% for the first decline in 12 years. Despite a surge in interest rates and mortgage costs, housing markets were noticeably stable. Real prices remain 7% above pre-pandemic levels.
In this graphic, we show the change in residential property prices with data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
The Growth in House Prices, Ranked
The following dataset from the BIS covers nominal and real house price growth across 58 countries and regions as of the fourth quarter of 2022:
Price Growth Rank | Country / Region | Nominal Year-over-Year Change (%) | Real Year-over-Year Change (%) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | ๐น๐ท Tรผrkiye | 167.9 | 51.0 |
2 | ๐ท๐ธ Serbia | 23.1 | 7.0 |
3 | ๐ท๐บ Russia | 23.1 | 9.7 |
4 | ๐ฒ๐ฐ North Macedonia | 20.6 | 1.0 |
5 | ๐ฎ๐ธ Iceland | 20.3 | 9.9 |
6 | ๐ญ๐ท Croatia | 17.3 | 3.6 |
7 | ๐ช๐ช Estonia | 16.9 | -3.0 |
8 | ๐ฎ๐ฑ Israel | 16.8 | 11.0 |
9 | ๐ญ๐บ Hungary | 16.5 | -5.1 |
10 | ๐ฑ๐น Lithuania | 16.0 | -5.5 |
11 | ๐ธ๐ฎ Slovenia | 15.4 | 4.2 |
12 | ๐ง๐ฌ Bulgaria | 13.4 | -3.2 |
13 | ๐ฌ๐ท Greece | 12.2 | 3.7 |
14 | ๐ต๐น Portugal | 11.3 | 1.3 |
15 | ๐ฌ๐ง United Kingdom | 10.0 | -0.7 |
16 | ๐ธ๐ฐ Slovak Republic | 9.7 | -4.8 |
17 | ๐ฆ๐ช United Arab Emirates | 9.6 | 2.9 |
18 | ๐ต๐ฑ Poland | 9.3 | -6.9 |
19 | ๐ฑ๐ป Latvia | 9.1 | -10.2 |
20 | ๐ธ๐ฌ Singapore | 8.6 | 1.9 |
21 | ๐ฎ๐ช Ireland | 8.6 | -0.2 |
22 | ๐จ๐ฑ Chile | 8.2 | -3.0 |
23 | ๐ฏ๐ต Japan | 7.9 | 3.9 |
24 | ๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico | 7.9 | -0.1 |
25 | ๐ต๐ญ Philippines | 7.7 | -0.2 |
26 | ๐บ๐ธ United States | 7.1 | 0.0 |
27 | ๐จ๐ฟ Czechia | 6.9 | -7.6 |
28 | ๐ท๐ด Romania | 6.7 | -7.5 |
29 | ๐ฒ๐น Malta | 6.3 | -0.7 |
30 | ๐จ๐พ Cyprus | 6.3 | -2.9 |
31 | ๐จ๐ด Colombia | 6.3 | -5.6 |
32 | ๐ฑ๐บ Luxembourg | 5.6 | -0.5 |
33 | ๐ช๐ธ Spain | 5.5 | -1.1 |
34 | ๐จ๐ญ Switzerland | 5.4 | 2.4 |
35 | ๐ณ๐ฑ Netherlands | 5.4 | -5.3 |
36 | ๐ฆ๐น Austria | 5.2 | -4.8 |
37 | ๐ซ๐ท France | 4.8 | -1.2 |
38 | ๐ง๐ช Belgium | 4.7 | -5.7 |
39 | ๐น๐ญ Thailand | 4.7 | -1.1 |
40 | ๐ฟ๐ฆ South Africa | 3.1 | -4.0 |
41 | ๐ฎ๐ณ India | 2.8 | -3.1 |
42 | ๐ฎ๐น Italy | 2.8 | -8.0 |
43 | ๐ณ๐ด Norway | 2.6 | -3.8 |
44 | ๐ฎ๐ฉ Indonesia | 2.0 | -3.4 |
45 | ๐ต๐ช Peru | 1.5 | -6.3 |
46 | ๐ฒ๐พ Malaysia | 1.2 | -2.6 |
47 | ๐ฐ๐ท South Korea | -0.1 | -5.0 |
48 | ๐ฒ๐ฆ Morocco | -0.1 | -7.7 |
49 | ๐ง๐ท Brazil | -0.1 | -5.8 |
50 | ๐ซ๐ฎ Finland | -2.3 | -10.2 |
51 | ๐ฉ๐ฐ Denmark | -2.4 | -10.6 |
52 | ๐ฆ๐บ Australia | -3.2 | -10.2 |
53 | ๐ฉ๐ช Germany | -3.6 | -12.1 |
54 | ๐ธ๐ช Sweden | -3.7 | -13.7 |
55 | ๐จ๐ณ China | -3.7 | -5.4 |
56 | ๐จ๐ฆ Canada | -3.8 | -9.8 |
57 | ๐ณ๐ฟ New Zealand | -10.4 | -16.5 |
58 | ๐ญ๐ฐ Hong Kong SAR | -13.5 | -15.1 |
Tรผrkiyeโs property prices jumped the highest globally, at nearly 168% amid soaring inflation.
Real estate demand has increased alongside declining interest rates. The government drastically cut interest rates from 19% in late 2021 to 8.5% to support a weakening economy.
Many European countries saw some of the highest price growth in nominal terms. A strong labor market and low interest rates pushed up prices, even as mortgage rates broadly doubled across the continent. For real price growth, most countries were in negative territoryโnotably Sweden, Germany, and Denmark.
Nominal U.S. housing prices grew just over 7%, while real price growth halted to 0%. Prices have remained elevated given the stubbornly low supply of inventory. In fact, residential prices remain 45% above pre-pandemic levels.
How Do Interest Rates Impact Property Markets?
Global house prices boomed during the pandemic as central banks cut interest rates to prop up economies.
Now, rates have returned to levels last seen before the Global Financial Crisis. On average, rates have increased four percentage points in many major economies. Roughly three-quarters of the countries in the BIS dataset witnessed negative year-over-year real house price growth as of the fourth quarter of 2022.
Interest rates have a large impact on property prices. Cross-country evidence shows that for every one percentage point increase in real interest rates, the growth rate of housing prices tends to fall by about two percentage points.
When Will Housing Prices Fall?
The rise in U.S. interest rates has been counteracted by homeowners being reluctant to sell so they can keep their low mortgage rates. As a result, it is keeping inventory low and prices high. Homeowners canโt sell and keep their low mortgage rates unless they meet strict conditions on a new property.
Additionally, several other factors impact price dynamics. Construction costs, income growth, labor shortages, and population growth all play a role.
With a strong labor market continuing through 2023, stable incomes may help stave off prices from falling. On the other hand, buyers with floating-rate mortgages face steeper costs and may be unable to afford new rates. This could increase housing supply in the market, potentially leading to lower prices.
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