Global Unicorn Valuation Reaches USD 5.2 Trillion in 2025: New WIPO Innovation Insight Post Reveals the US, China, India leading with Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda emerging strong

In 2025, the valuation of the global unicorn landscape reached approximately USD 5.2 trillion, up from USD 3.8 trillion in 2022, reflecting a 37% increase over the past three years (see Figure 1). Over the same period, the number of unicorns rose from 1,191 in 2022 to 1,290 in 2025, representing a 8% increase.

The United States (US), China, and India lead in terms of the stock of unicorns with 942 unicorns, equivalent to over 80% of today’s total unicorn valuation, while Nigeria, Uganda, and Ghana have high-impact unicorns in Africa.

For many countries, hosting one or more unicorns has become a visible innovative capacity. Unicorns private companies valued at over USD 1 billion reflect a firm’s ability to scale successfully, attract private investment and skilled talent and often act as drivers of intellectual property (IP) and translate innovation into commercial impact.

Figure 1: Global unicorns crossing the USD 5 trillion mark in 2025

Source: WIPO, the Global Innovation Index (GII) database, based on CBInsights, Tracker - The Complete list of Unicorns Companies and WIPO estimates

Table 1: The world’s largest unicorns in 2025 (USD billion)

Source: WIPO, the Global Innovation Index (GII) database, based on CBInsights, Tracker - The Complete list of Unicorns Companies

Unicorns based in the US account for more than three times the total market valuation of unicorns compared with the rest of the world and for seven out of the top 10 most valuable unicorns worldwide in 2025 (see Table 1), accounting for 55% of the world’s unicorns and the equivalent of 65% of the global unicorn valuation ecosystem. OpenAI, SpaceX, Anthropic, Databricks, Stripe, xAI, and Figure have increased their valuations by approximately 450% relative to their 2023 market valuations. As of 2025, the combined valuations of these companies alone account for around 24% of global unicorn valuations.

China follows with 12% of the global stock of unicorns, equivalent to USD 690 billion in valuation, highlighted by the social media and online content company ByteDance reaching a USD 300 billion valuation in 2025 (see Table 1 and Figure 2).

India also stands out, hosting 66 unicorns, accounting for 5% of unicorns worldwide, with a combined valuation equivalent to 3% of global value. In 2025, the valuation of India’s top unicorns exceeded USD 24 billion, led by the tourism reservation platform Oyo Rooms, Dream11 in the digital gaming segment, and Razorpay in digital payments.

• Other leading unicorns include Revolut in the United Kingdom (UK), Shein in Singapore, and Canva in Australia, with valuations of USD 75, 66, and 32 billion in 2025 respectively.
• European unicorns that also stand out are Mistral AI in France (USD 13 billion) and Celonis in Germany (USD 13 billion).
• Latin American unicorn valuations are led by Rappi, the Colombian app offering a broad digital ecosystem spanning on-demand delivery and financial services, as well as unicorns such as QuintoAndar in real estate and the Brazilian C6 Bank.
• In Northern Africa and Western Asia, Israel hosts high-value unicorns such as StarkWare, which develops blockchain scaling technologies, and Moon Active, a mobile gaming company. In the United Arab Emirates, Tabby has emerged as a buy-now-pay-later platform, expanding digital consumer finance across the region.
• African unicorns, on the other hand, while smaller in number, are steady and strong, particularly in Nigeria, Ghana, and Uganda. By size, the largest are Flutterwave and Opay, key players in the financial sector in Nigeria, as well as Chipper Cash in Ghana and Uganda, collectively accounting for almost 8 billion USD in valuation.

Figure 2: Top 3 unicorns by world regions, in USD billion, 2025

Source: WIPO based on CBInsights, Tracker - The Complete list of Unicorns Companies and Africa: The Big Deal Database

Focusing on 2025 alone, new unicorns with a global valuation of USD 188 billion emerged, close to 100 new unicorns worldwide.

• Notable new US unicorns include Labs (USD 12.5 billion) and Thinking Machines Lab (USD 10 billion), both focussed on AI systems; and Quince (USD 4.5 billion), a direct-to-consumer e-commerce and retail platform.
• Chinese industrial unicorns also feature prominently, including Zhiyuan Robot, a robotics company focused on humanoid and general-purpose robots, and FoxESS, a provider of solar inverters and energy storage, each valued at USD 1.4 billion.
• New unicorns in the UK include Tide, a digital banking platform for small and medium-sized businesses; Nothing, a consumer electronics company; and MUBI, a curated film streaming platform.
• In Germany, Quantum Systems, specializing in unmanned aerial systems, and Parloa, focused on AI-driven customer service automation, as well as France’s Zama, doing cryptography solutions, also reached plus one billion-dollar valuations for the first time in 2025.
• In India, Aragen, providing pharmaceutical R&D valued at USD 1.4 billion, and JSW One Platforms, a B2B e-commerce platform, joined the unicorn global list.
• In turn, Plata in Mexico, a fintech unicorn, became the newest Latin American unicorn, valued at USD 1.5 billion.

Compared to 2024, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ireland recorded an expansion in their counts, with two new unicorns in 2025: Xpanceo (an AI-powered contact lens) and The Open Platform (AI-powered crypto) in the UAE, and Pump (cloud computing) and Tines (AI and security integration) in Ireland.

In terms of stock, as shown in Figure 3, the US still leads in the number of global unicorns, hosting 718 unicorns, followed by China (158), India (66), and the UK (57). Germany (33) and France (29) follow, while Israel accounts for 23 unicorns.

Figure 3: Leading economies and sectors in terms of 2025 global unicorn count

Source: WIPO, the Global Innovation Index (GII) database, based on CBInsights, Tracker - The Complete list of Unicorns Companies, up to September 2025

WIPO has embedded unicorn valuation data within the Global Innovation Index (GII) framework since 2023 to provide more of a broader innovation ecosystem perspective. The GII shows the most unicorn-intensive GII economies, i.e. the combined valuation of active unicorns relative to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the economy.

• Estonia, driven by Bolt in the mobility and digital platforms sector, and Singapore, supported by Shein in consumer retail, top this ranking of the most unicorn-intensive economies, with the combined valuation of their unicorns amounting to 21% and 16% of GDP, respectively (see Figure 4).
• The US follows, with its unicorn valuations making up for 11% of GDP.
• Lithuania, led by Vinted, as well as Israel, driven by StarkWare, and the UK host diversified unicorn ecosystems across digital, financial, and technology-intensive sectors, accounting for almost 6% of GDP.
• The unicorn ecosystem in Finland spans digital platforms and health technology, accounting for approximately 5% of GDP.
• India hosts a broad-based set of unicorns across hospitality platforms, digital gaming, and financial technology, accounting for 4% of Indian GDP.
• Senegal stands out, with the valuation of Wave, a single unicorn, amounting to around 5% of GDP (see Box 1).

Figure 4: Top 10 most unicorn-intensive economies, combined valuation of an economy’s unicorns, as percentage of its 2025 GDP

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Source: WIPO, the Global Innovation Index (GII) database, based on CBInsights, and Africa: The Big Deal Database

From a historical perspective, unicorn valuations have followed a rollercoaster trajectory before and after 2021, mirroring broader venture capital trends. Monthly unicorn creation peaked in 2021, boosted by pandemic-era low interest rates and abundant liquidity (see Figure 5), and then declined markedly in 2022, reflecting tighter financing conditions and heightened market discipline. Nevertheless, activity remained elevated relative to the pre-boom period, stabilizing at around 10 new unicorns per month during 2022–2024. In 2025, nearly 100 new unicorns were created.

Figure 5: Monthly number of new unicorn companies, 2017 – 2025

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Source: WIPO, the Global Innovation Index (GII) database, based on CBInsights, Tracker - The Complete list of Unicorns Companies
Note: October to December 2025 – the dotted lines - are estimated values based on trends.

• Continuing on this analysis across time, before 2014, unicorn activity was limited, with only a small number of firms reaching large scale (see Figure 6). This early cohort is dominated by a handful of unicorns, notably SpaceX, Stripe and Fanatics.
• The 2015–2020 period marks the start of an expansion in unicorn activity across countries and sectors. This cohort is characterized by the rise of large Consumer & Retail, Enterprise Tech, and Financial Services unicorns. Unicorns such as OpenAI, ByteDance, Shein, Revolut, and Databricks scaled rapidly.
• By contrast, the 2021–2025 unicorn cohort features a larger number of companies and diverse sectoral – albeit recently AI-dominated and mostly US-based mix such as Anthropic, Safe Superintelligence, and xAI.  In sum, AI accounted for about 56% of the number of unicorns and an even larger 65% of total valuation (similar to VC as per see our Nov 2025 WIPO GII Innovation Insight). Industrials followed, representing 19% of unicorns and 14.5% of valuation, while Healthcare & Life Sciences accounted for 10% of firms and about 10% of valuation, suggesting more balanced valuation-to-count ratios.
• Other large ones include China’s ZongMu Technology in industrial applications, Canada’s Dapper Labs in Media & Entertainment, the UK’s Blockchain.com in Financial Services, and Finland’s RELEX in Consumer & Retail, reflecting a wider diversification of both sectoral focus and geographic reach.

Figure 6: The global unicorn ecosystem at absolute valuation, three periods to 2025

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Source: WIPO based on CBInsights, Tracker – The Complete list of Unicorns Companies; Africa: The Big Deal (https://africathebigdeal.com); and IMF, World Economic Outlook

Background

The Global Innovation Index includes a pillar on Knowledge and Technology Outputs, with three sub-pillars on knowledge creation (6.1), knowledge impact (6.2) and knowledge diffusion (6.2). The sub-pillar 6.2 includes one indicator, Unicorns valuation, % GDP (6.2.2) that measures the total valuation of all unicorns in a country as percentage of GDP. A unicorn is a private firm with a valuation over USD 1 billion. See Sources and Definitions.