Of the list’s 225 alumni, 131, or 58%, became unicorns, including DoorDash, Figma, Anduril, Benchling and Rippling. This year, it’s dominated by artificial intelligence.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Thursday, August 15th. Today on Forbes, Forbes' next billion-dollar startups list has accurately predicted 100-plus unicorns in 10 years. This year was the 10th year in a row that Forbes teamed up with TrueBridge Capital Partners to search for the 25 U.S.-backed companies most likely to reach a $1 billion valuation. Of the list's 225 alumni, 131 or 58% became unicorns, including DoorDash, Figma, Andoril, Benchling, and Rippling, although 21 of those are now worth less than $1 billion. 42 were acquired, only 3, 1% went public for less than $1 billion. There have been surprisingly few disasters, just five startups imploded or shut down. Most spectacularly, Microbiome startup Ubiome, an alum of the 2018 list, which liquidated after being raided by the FBI over its billing practices. Only the tiniest fraction of the nation's tens of thousands of venture-backed startups will ever reach a billion-dollar valuation. And Forbes first launched this list in partnership with TrueBridge in 2015. The goal was to find those that looked poised to become unicorns well before they became household names. From the start, the list was grounded in quantitative analysis based on data provided by companies on metrics that include revenue, revenue growth, valuation, valuation growth, and headcount. One of the standout companies that first year was Tanium, the cybersecurity startup that was one of three firms that year to cross the $1 billion mark before we published. We're more careful to exclude startups like that now. Today, the Kirkland-Washington-based startup, which reached a valuation of $9 billion in 2021, has raised nearly $1 billion in funding and ranks #20 on the Forbes Cloud 100 list. And perhaps our single best win from not just that year but the list overall, DoorDash, the food delivery firm that now trades on NASDAQ with a market cap of $51 billion. Since then, we've identified startups that include Anderil, the defense tech firm and alumnus of the 2018 list that has now valued at $14 billion. Language learning app Duolingo, which was on the 2019 list and is now publicly traded with a market cap of $8 billion. One startup Figma, an alum of the 2019 list that's now valued at $12.5 billion, HR software firm Ripling, which was on the list in 2020 and is now valued at $13.5 billion, and semiconductor startup Astera Labs, an alumnus of the 2022 list that's now publicly traded with a market cap of $6.2 billion. Astera, the first semiconductor startup to make the list, posted latest 12-month revenue of $230 million and told investors in early August that it expected $95 million to $100 million in the upcoming third quarter. The company's founders, all first-time entrepreneurs who'd previously worked at Texas Instruments, started the company because of a belief that the existing ways of connecting all the GPUs and AI chips together wasn't keeping up with advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning. In a recent interview, co-founder and president Sanjay Gajendra said that the AI boom had played out even faster than they'd expected. He said, quote, "We did not envision the trillion-parameter plus models. To be candid with you, this is way bigger than we had imagined." Last year's list featured Monarch Tractor, makers of an electric autonomous tractor which recently raised $133 million at a valuation of $518 million to expand overseas, starting in Europe. Despite farmers postponing purchases of capital equipment due to interest rates, Monarch expects revenue to reach $112 million this year, up from $37 million last year. Co-founder and CEO, Praveen Panmetsa, said, quote, "For farmers, high interest rates are making purchases challenging. We're feeling some of that, but because we are a transformational company and providing operational savings to farmers, we can continue our growth." For full coverage and to see this year's next billion-dollar startups list, which was published earlier this week, check out Amy Feldman's piece on Forbes.com. This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in. [BLANK_AUDIO]
