IN POPULAR IMAGINATION, UNICORNS CONJURE up the picture of a rare but beautiful mythical creature described by the ancients as resembling a horse, with a single horn emanating from the center of its forehead. A timeless symbol of purity and uniqueness, this rich symbolism also translates to the world of business. In the startup lexicon, a unicorn is also a rarity and defined as a relatively young company, usually less than 10 years old valued at $1 billion or more by public or private investors.
According to CBInsights, a New York City-based market intelligence company, as of October 2022, there were over 1,200 unicorns in the world. Popular unicorns include the artificial intelligence (AI) company, ByteDance, from China that is valued at $140 billion; Elon Musk’s spacecraft engineering firm, SpaceX, valued at $127 billion and Chinese online fashion retailer, Shein, valued at $100 billion. Some former unicorns include Airbnb, Facebook and Google. Furthermore, according to the report, the total cumulative valuation of these rarified businesses is $3,871 billion.
In Africa, the rise of these mythical commerce creatures is not different.
A few years ago, the continent saw the emergence of its first unicorn with the pan-African online retailer, Jumia Group. The company had capitalized on a major gap in the virtual market building a customized platform where consumers in 14 African countries can order their groceries, shop the latest fashion or order takeaway from their favorite restaurants online. In 2019, Jumia became the first brand from the continent to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), after commanding a valuation of $1.6 billion the previous year. Since then, six more businesses have entered this very elite club, illustrating that the rate of unicorns forming on the continent is fast accelerating.
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