What is a "unicorn" in the high tech domain ( aka "licorne" in French) ?

The "unicorn" companies have common features:

• specialise on the high tech domain
• exist since at least 10 years
• they are capitalised over 1 billion USD even before to be on the stock market

The term "unicorn" has been used for the first time in the literature by Aileen Lee.
We may say that in average there are four unicorns born every year.


Disruptive Innovation
 Nearly all of the unicorn companies have disrupted the industry they belong to. Uber changed the way people book cabs, Airbnb capitalized on the sharing economy, Snapchat disrupted the social networking sphere, Dropbox by sharing files on the Cloud, DJI with drones,  etc.


First Mover’s Advantage
Disruption and the first mover’s advantage go hand in hand. Unicorns not only capitalize on the first mover’s advantage but maintain their positioning by constantly innovating and improving.


Consumer Focused
Their business models are focused on making the things more easier and affordable for the consumers (B2C).


List of unicorn startup companies

What is GAFA, NATU and BATX?

The acronym GAFA stands for the four most powerful companies on the internet world and simply of the world. 

Those companies are: Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon and their purchases: Whatsapp, Instagram or Snapchat.

The economical power of those companies might match or even exceed the one of some States.

One might wonder why Microsoft does not belong to this group. That is why sometimes the acronym is GAFAM (with M).

The GAFA companies represent the economy at the beginning of the 21st century and embody the entry to the digital era. 

 The GAFA are challenged by other internet companies known as NATU and BATX.

The acronym NATU stands for: Netflix, Airbnb, Tesla and Uber.

The acronym BATX stands for the four Chinese internet giants: 

       Baidu : the reference search engine in China;

       Alibaba : the reference online marketplace in China;

       Tencent : WeChat app, WeChat app is similar 

                       to WhatsApp but far away much more 

                       advanced. Mainly with  WeChat Chinese can do most of their daily things from their smartphones: groceries, bank payments, money transfer, etc.

    and Xiaomi : smartphone maker. Very similar to Apple.

The economical power of those giants GAFA, NATU and BATX is more and more worrying and increasingly subject to debate.