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The World’s 200+ Unicorns, in One Giant Map

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Unicorns are privately held startups valued at over $1B. Map is plotted based on country of origin, not exact geographic location.
The World's 200+ Unicorns, in One Giant Map


The World’s 200+ Unicorns, in One Giant Map

Today’s infographic comes to us from cost information site HowMuch.net, and it shows the hundreds of unicorns around the world. The special “unicorn” moniker, of course, is reserved for privately-held startups that reach valuations of a billion dollars or more.

In this map, the startups are plotted plotted based on their country of origin, and not their physical geographic location (such as a specific city or state). Further, companies are organized also based on color, which represents the spectrum of sectors that these startups span across.

The Most Valuable Startups

Today, there are 214 unicorns worth a collective $744 billion – but that dollar value is distributed very unequally.

According to research firm CB Insights, the top 10 unicorns alone are worth $303.3 billion (41%), while the “bottom” 204 make up the remaining $440.7 billion (59%) of the pool.

RankUnicornCountryValuation ($B)% of Unicorn Total
#1UberUSA$689.1%
#2Didi ChuxingChina$506.7%
#3XiaomiChina$466.2%
#4AirbnbUSA$29.33.9%
#5SpaceXUSA$21.22.8%
#6Palantir TechnologiesUSA$202.7%
#7WeWorkUSA$202.7%
#8Lu.comChina$18.52.5%
#9China Internet Plus HoldingChina$182.4%
#10PinterestUSA$12.31.7%
Top 10 Total$303.340.8%
All Other 204 Unicorns$440.7059.2%

Known Unknowns

You’re probably very familiar with companies like Uber and Airbnb, but almost half of the companies on the Top 10 list are from China.

What do these companies do that make them more valuable than big names like Dropbox, Stripe, or Spotify?

Didi Chuxing – $50 billion
Didi Chuxing is China’s most popular ride-sharing service, providing transportation to 400 million users across over 400 cities in China. In 2016, they even acquired Uber’s China division, winning an epic “battle” between these two transportation startup giants.

Xiaomi – $46 billion
Xiaomi designs and sells consumer electronics products, and is currently the world’s fifth-largest smartphone maker. (We talked about how Xiaomi and other companies in China are shaking up global the smartphone market here.)

Lu.com – $18.5 billion
Lufax is the second-largest P2P lender in China, and is partially owned by Ping An Insurance Group. The company plans to aggressively target other areas of fintech, including wealth, credit, payments, insurance, and regulatory tech.

China Internet Plus Holding – $18 billion
Formed by a merger in 2015, and now doing business as Meituan-Dianping, this company has the world’s largest online and on-demand delivery platform, recently reaching up to 10 million daily orders and deliveries. Think of it as a combination Groupon and Yelp.

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Mining

Ranked: The World’s Top Diamond Mining Countries, by Carats and Value

Who are the leaders in rough diamond production and how much is their diamond output worth?

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A cropped chart showing the leaders in rough diamond mining and how much their diamond output is worth.

Ranked: World Diamond Mining By Country, Carat, and Value

Only 22 countries in the world engage in rough diamond production—also known as uncut, raw or natural diamonds—mining for them from deposits within their territories.

This chart, by Sam Parker illustrates the leaders in rough diamond production by weight and value. It uses data from Kimberly Process (an international certification organization) along with estimates by Dr. Ashok Damarupurshad, a precious metals and diamond specialist in South Africa.

Rough Diamond Production, By Weight

Russia takes the top spot as the world’s largest rough diamond producer, mining close to 42 million carats in 2022, well ahead of its peers.

ℹ️ Carat is the unit of measurement for the physical weight of diamonds. One carat equals 0.200 grams, which means it takes over 2,265 carats to equal 1 pound.

Russia’s large lead over second-place Botswana (24.8 million carats) and third-ranked Canada (16.2 million carats) indicates that the country’s diamond production is circumventing sanctions due to the difficulties in tracing a diamond’s origin.

Here’s a quick breakdown of rough diamond production in the world.

RankCountryRough Diamond
Production (Carats)
1🇷🇺 Russia41,923,910
2🇧🇼 Botswana24,752,967
3🇨🇦 Canada16,249,218
4🇨🇩 DRC9,908,998
5🇿🇦 South Africa9,660,233
6🇦🇴 Angola8,763,309
7🇿🇼 Zimbabwe4,461,450
8🇳🇦 Namibia2,054,227
9🇱🇸 Lesotho727,737
10🇸🇱 Sierra Leone688,970
11🇹🇿 Tanzania375,533
12🇧🇷 Brazil158,420
13🇬🇳 Guinea128,771
14🇨🇫 Central
African Republic
118,044
15🇬🇾 Guyana83,382
16🇬🇭 Ghana82,500
17🇱🇷 Liberia52,165
18🇨🇮 Cote D'Ivoire3,904
19🇨🇬 Republic of Congo3,534
20🇨🇲 Cameroon2,431
21🇻🇪 Venezuela1,665
22🇲🇱 Mali92
Total120,201,460

Note: South Africa’s figures are estimated.

As with most other resources, (oil, gold, uranium), rough diamond production is distributed unequally. The top 10 rough diamond producing countries by weight account for 99.2% of all rough diamonds mined in 2022.

Diamond Mining, by Country

However, higher carat mined doesn’t necessarily mean better value for the diamond. Other factors like the cut, color, and clarity also influence a diamond’s value.

Here’s a quick breakdown of diamond production by value (USD) in 2022.

RankCountryRough Diamond
Value (USD)
1🇧🇼 Botswana$4,975M
2🇷🇺 Russia$3,553M
3🇦🇴 Angola$1,965M
4🇨🇦 Canada$1,877M
5🇿🇦 South Africa$1,538M
6🇳🇦 Namibia$1,234M
7🇿🇼 Zimbabwe$424M
8🇱🇸 Lesotho$314M
9🇸🇱 Sierra Leone$143M
10🇹🇿 Tanzania$110M
11🇨🇩 DRC$65M
12🇧🇷 Brazil$30M
13🇱🇷 Liberia$18M
14🇨🇫 Central
African Republic
$15M
15🇬🇾 Guyana$14M
16🇬🇳 Guinea$6M
17🇬🇭 Ghana$3M
18🇨🇲 Cameroon$0.25M
19🇨🇬 Republic of Congo$0.20M
20🇨🇮 Cote D'Ivoire$0.16M
21🇻🇪 Venezuela$0.10M
22🇲🇱 Mali$0.06M
Total$16,290M

Note: South Africa’s figures are estimated. Furthermore, numbers have been rounded and may not sum to the total.

Thus, even though Botswana only produced 59% of Russia’s diamond weight in 2022, it had a trade value of nearly $5 billion, approximately 1.5 times higher than Russia’s for the same year.

Another example is Angola, which is ranked 6th in diamond production, but 3rd in diamond value.

Both countries (as well as South Africa, Canada, and Namibia) produce gem-quality rough diamonds versus countries like Russia and the DRC whose diamonds are produced mainly for industrial use.

Which Regions Produce the Most Diamonds in 2022?

Unsurprisingly, Africa is the largest rough diamond producing region, accounting for 51% of output by weight, and 66% by value.

RankRegionShare of Rough
Diamond Production (%)
Share of Rough
Diamond Value (%)
1Africa51.4%66.4%
2Europe34.9%32.9%
3North America13.5%52.8%
4South America0.2%2.4%

However diamond mining in Africa is a relatively recent phenomenon, fewer than 200 years old. Diamonds had been discovered—and prized—as far back as 2,000 years ago in India, later on spreading west to Egyptian pharaohs and the Roman Empire.

By the start of the 20th century, diamond production on a large scale took off: first in South Africa, and decades later in other African countries. In fact between 1889–1959, Africa produced 98% of the world’s diamonds.

And in the latter half of the 20th century, the term blood diamond evolved from diamonds mined in African conflict zones used to finance insurgency or crime.

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