Charted: How Long Does it Take Unicorns to Exit?
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Charted: How Long Does it Take Unicorns to Exit?

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Charting How Many Years Unicorns take to Exit

How Long Does it Take For Unicorns to Exit?

For most unicorns—startups with a $1 billion valuation or more—it can take years to see a liquidity event.

Take Twitter, which went public seven years after its 2006 founding. Or Uber, which had an IPO after a decade of operation in 2019. After all, companies first have to succeed and build up their valuation in order to not go bankrupt or dissolve. Few are able to succeed and capitalize in a quick and tidy manner.

So when do unicorns exit, either successfully through an IPO or acquisition, or unsuccessfully through bankruptcy or liquidation? The above visualization from Ilya Strebulaev breaks down the time it took for 595 unicorns to exit from 1997 to 2022.

Unicorns: From Founding to Exit

Here’s how unicorn exits broke down over the last 25 years. Data was collected by Strebulaev at the Venture Capital Initiative in Stanford and covers exits up to October 2022:

Years
(Founding to Exit)
Unicorn ExampleNumber of Unicorns
1997‒2022
1YouTube10
2Instagram31
3Groupon41
4Zynga43
5Salesforce36
6Alphabet (Google)51
7Tesla35
8Zoom59
9Coursera44
10Uber Technologies45
11WeWork46
12Airbnb35
13Credit Karma18
14SimilarWeb19
1523andMe15
16Sonos11
17Roblox12
18Squarespace6
19Vizio9
>20Cytek17

Overall, unicorns exited after a median of eight years in business.

Companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Indeed are among the unicorns that exited in exactly eight years, which in total made up 10% of tracked exits. Another major example is Zoom, which launched in 2011 and went public in 2019 at a $9.2 billion valuation.

There were also many earlier exits, such as YouTube’s one-year turnaround from 2005 founding to 2006 acquisition by Google. Groupon also had an early exit just three years after its founding in 2008, after turning down an even earlier acquisition exit (also through Google).

In total, unicorn exits within 11 years or less accounted for just over three-quarters of tracked exits from 1997 to 2022. Many of the companies that took longer to exit also took longer to reach unicorn status, including website company Squarespace, which was founded in 2003 but didn’t reach a billion-dollar valuation until 2017 (and listed on the NYSE in 2021).

Unicorns, by Exit Strategy

Broadly speaking, there are three main types of exits: going public through an IPO, SPAC, or direct listing, being acquired, or liquidation/bankruptcy.

The most well-known are IPOs, or initial public offerings. These are the most common types of unicorn exits in strong market conditions, with 2021 seeing 79 unicorn IPOs globally, with $83 billion in proceeds.

20212022% Change
# Unicorn IPOs7913-84%
Proceeds$82.9B$5.3B-94%

But the number of IPOs drops drastically given weaker market performance, as seen above. At the end of 2022, an estimated 91% of unicorn IPOs listed since 2021 had share prices fall below their IPO price.

A less common unicorn exit is an SPAC (special purpose acquisition company), although they’ve been gaining momentum and were used by WeWork and BuzzFeed. With an SPAC, a shell company raises money in an IPO and merges with a private company to take it public.

Finally, while an IPO lists new shares to the public with an underwriter, a direct listing sells existing shares without an underwriter. Though it was historically seen as a cheaper IPO alternative, some well-known unicorns have used direct listings including Roblox and Coinbase.

And as valuations for unicorns (and their public listings) have grown, acquisitions have become less frequent. Additionally, many major firms have been buying back shares since 2022 to shore up investor confidence instead of engaging in acquisitions.

Slower Exit Activity

While the growth of unicorns has been exponential over the last decade, exit activity has virtually ground to a halt in 2023.

Investor caution and increased conservation of capital have contributed to the lack of unicorn exits. As of the second quarter of 2023, just eight unicorns in the U.S. exited. These include Mosaic ML, an artificial intelligence startup, and carbon recycling firm LanzaTech.

As exit activity declines, companies may halt listing plans and eventually slow expansion and cut costs. What’s uncertain is whether or not this lull in unicorn exits—and declining influx of private capital influx—is temporary or part of a long-term readjustment.

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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.

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Mapped: The World’s Top Financial Centers in 2025

See which cities are dominating global finance in this 2025 ranking of the world’s top financial centers.

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Mapped: The World’s Top Financial Centers in 2025

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.

Key Takeaways

  • The 37th edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI 37) ranks the competitiveness of 119 financial hubs
  • Little has changed at the top of the index, with New York, London, and Hong Kong continuing their long-standing dominance

Financial centers are a core pillar of the modern economy, channeling capital, facilitating trade, and driving innovation across the world.

In this graphic, we visualized the world’s top 40 most competitive financial centers, using data from the 37th edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI 37).

Data & Methodology

The GFCI 37 was compiled using 140 quantitative measures from sources like the World Bank, OECD, and UN.

These measures are combined with assessments collected by respondents to the GFCI online questionnaire. In total, the GFCI 37 used 31,314 assessments from 4,946 respondents.

The data we used to create this graphic is listed below.

CityGFCI 37 RankGFCI 37 Rating
🇺🇸 New York1769
🇬🇧 London2762
🇭🇰 Hong Kong3760
🇸🇬 Singapore4750
🇺🇸 San Francisco5749
🇺🇸 Chicago6746
🇺🇸 Los Angeles7745
🇨🇳 Shanghai8744
🇨🇳 Shenzhen9743
🇰🇷 Seoul10742
🇩🇪 Frankfurt11741
🇦🇪 Dubai12740
🇺🇸 Washington DC13739
🇮🇪 Dublin14738
🇨🇭 Geneva15737
🇱🇺 Luxembourg16736
🇫🇷 Paris17735
🇳🇱 Amsterdam18734
🇺🇸 Boston19733
🇨🇳 Beijing20732
🇨🇭 Zurich21731
🇯🇵 Tokyo22730
🇨🇦 Toronto23729
🇰🇷 Busan24728
🇯🇪 Jersey25727
🇺🇸 Miami26726
🇨🇦 Montreal27725
🇦🇺 Melbourne28724
🇬🇧 Edinburgh29723
🇦🇺 Sydney30722
🇨🇦 Vancouver31721
🇬🇧 Glasgow32720
🇨🇭 Lugano33719
🇨🇳 Guangzhou34718
🇨🇳 Qingdao35717
🇺🇸 San Diego36716
🇩🇪 Berlin37715
🇦🇪 Abu Dhabi38714
🇨🇳 Chengdu39713
🇯🇵 Osaka40712

Areas of Competitiveness

The quantitative factors used in the GFCI model are grouped into five areas of competitiveness:

  • Business environment: Transparency and stability of systems, regulatory complexity
  • Human capital: Access to skill professionals, investment in education
  • Infrastructure: Quality of physical and digital infrastructure
  • Financial sector development: Accessibility to clients, development of digital solutions
  • Reputation: Trustworthiness of legal and regulatory systems
  • Regional Insights

    We’ve summarized the main highlights from each GFCI region below.

    North America

    North America has four centers in the top 10: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The most improved within North America are Miami and Vancouver, which both climbed over 10 places in the ranking.

    Western Europe

    London is the region’s dominant center, with seven other cities featuring in the top 20. The average rating across Western Europe increased by 2.14%.

    Asia Pacific

    Asia Pacific has six centers in the top 20, with four belonging to China (Hong Kong SAR, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing). Looking elsewhere, Hangzhou, New Delhi, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, and Manila all rose six or more places.

    Middle East & Africa

    The region’s leading centers are Dubai and Abu Dhabi, with Dubai climbing four places to 12th in GFCI 37. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv, Kuwait City, and Johannesburg each fell more than 10 places.

    Latin America & The Caribbean

    São Paulo rose seven places this year, making it the leading financial center in the region.

    Learn More on the Voronoi App

    If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Billion Dollar Companies by Country in 2025 on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

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