Taps Coogan – November 22nd, 2020

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The following chart, from Statista.com, highlights the ten highest valued startups in the world. The data comes from CB Insights‘ database of privately owned startups with valuations over $1 billion, so-called ‘Unicorns.’

The highest valued startup in the world is currently Chinese AI company Bytedance, parent company of TikTok, which has an estimated valuation of $140 billion. Bytedance is followed by Didi, China’s version of Uber.

The first US startup to make the list is Elon Musk’s SpaceX, coming in at number three with a valuation of $46 billion. SpaceX is also the only ‘startup’ on the list that isn’t predominantly a software company. It is followed by payment processor Strype and Airbnb.

All but one of the companies in the top ten are Chinese or American. The sole exception is One97 which owns the Indian payment service Paytm.

Notably absent from the top 10 are any European startups. Indeed, in the list of 500 startups worth over $1 billion assembled by CB Insights, only 31 are from the EU compared to 241 in the US and 118 in China.

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