CB Insights Picks Their 2019 Unicorns list
For those not familiar with the term, Unicorn is used to describe a Venture Backed company that has achieved a pre-IPO valuation over a billion dollars. While this is something that was very rare in the past, it seems like there are unicorns everywhere now.
CB Insights (no relation) has published their picks for the next top companies. While some of them seem like quite a stretch to say they are going to be unicorns, some have a good shot. They have a pretty strong track record of picking winners. Looking back on 2015’s list, they had a success rate of 48% which in the world of the VCs is a heck of a good job.
The ones that seem the most relevant and strongest to me are:
Amplitude: amplitude.com - Relationship Management Platform
BetterCloud: bettercloud.com - Security and analytics for SaaS and cloud
Braze: braze.com - Multi-channel relationship management platform
Contentful: contentful.com - Content Management platform
DeepMap: deepmap.ai - Geospatial tools and services for the autonomous vehicle market
Domino Data Labs: dominodatalabs.com - SaaS based data sciences platform
Embark Trucks: embarktrucks.com - Autonomous trucking company
Front: frontapp.com - Shared inbox for teams and service desks
HackerOne: hackerone.com - Gameified hacking collective providing security services to businesses
MapBox: mapbox.com - Geospatial data services utilizing OpenAddress and OpenStreetMap
Outreach: outreach.io - Online Relationship Management Platform
SalesLoft: salesloft.com - Customer Relationship Management platform
Segment: segment.com - Customer Data Infrastructure (CDI) platform for the MarTech space
SiSense: sisense.com - Agile based business Intelligence platform
Sonder: sonder.com - A mashup between AirBNB and a traditional Hotel
While I don’t see a path for most of these to reach that billion dollar valuation, they are still interesting companies to track. The odds are a little better these days since there has been so much money put into VCs, that the numbers have been ticking up.
I do want to give a special mention to sonder.com. They Are taking the best parts of AirBNB and mixing it with the safety and reliability of a traditional hotel. They own or lease residential properties that they operate like a hotel, so you get to stay in a neighborhood, with the amenities of a residence for less than the cost of a hotel.
