Will the number of unicorn companies grow from now to the end of the year?
68%
chance
Resolution: At the end of 2022, I will check the most recently published count of unicorn companies on https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies. Resolves YES if it is greater than the current value of 1100 and NO otherwise. Resolves N/A if this data source is no longer updated or usable.
Background:
According to https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies, there are 1100 unicorns (private companies with a valuation >$1B) as of today. This number has grown quickly in the past few years, up from 495 in November 2020.
There has been increasing talk recently of whether we are in a tech bubble that is finally bursting, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/19/technology/tech-startup-bubble.htm. Since the beginning of the year, the tech-heavy NASDAQ fell 22.2%, compared to a 13.5% drop for the broad S&P 500 index. About half of that decline was in the last month. How will falling stock prices of public tech companies impact the valuations of private tech startups this year?
Hypothetically, if we were to slash the valuations of the unicorns list by 22.2%, only companies currently valued at >$1.28B would still qualify as unicorns, which would leave only 706 of the 1100.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unicorn_startup_companies for some historical data points on the number of unicorns.
Manifold Markets bought M$30 of YES19 days ago
Well we know there will be at least 1 new one if you catch my drift