The 2022 Unicorns of Silicon Valley 🦄🚀🤑

Hey girlbosses (lmao) 👋

Bailey AND Madelyn here 🤯 Coming at you live from San Francisco!!!!

We are currently at the world’s largest community conference 🕺💃 slaying some sales and enjoying some wonderful networking 🤝 Look:

The drive from the airport to our accommodations was full of billboards, but not just ANY billboards - they were all AI & tech based. It felt like a fantastic utopian movie!!!

These inspired us to do a quick dig into what’s been happening in the bay area lately, and to no surprise the city is still crankin’ out hugely successful & innovative companies.

Today, let’s look at 10 unicorns that were birthed in Silicon Valley (San Fran area) last year!

🦄WAIT FIRST - WHAT IS A UNICORN✨

Startups earn the title of this rare & magical creature once their value surpasses $1 BILLION! Some popular unicorns you may know include SpaceX (daddy Musk), Robinhood, and Instacart.

💸10 Companies that are UNICORNS!!🦄

Envoy:

Envoy had a hot year making money! (Werk it) In January 2022, they got $111 million in a funding round Series C, which made them worth $1.4 billion! Brookfield Growth led this round and gave them the money to grow in things like technology and advertising. Envoy wants to make offices better and more fun by changing how technology works there. They have worked with big names like Google, Tesla, Slack and Pinterest!! What a serve!!!

CommerceIQ:

CommerceIQ is a company based in Palo Alto, they got $115 million from Softbank to improve online stores. This made them worth more than $1 billion in March 2022. With this money, they grew their business globally and bought a company called e.fundamentals that helps businesses in other countries. They also teamed up with Walmart Connect, which is a significant partnership.

Upside Foods:

Upside Foods is a company that makes meat differently (and kinda likes to play god). They make their meat by cultivating directly from animal cells…like what?! They secured the bag and got $400 million, in a funding round Series C. Two big groups, Temasek and the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, gave them this money. This made UPSIDE Foods worth more than $1 billion in total, they've collected $608 million in funding until now. After they got the $400 million in April, they started working to turn their special meat into something the public can buy.

NexHealth:

Healthcare innovation giant NexHealth secured a $125 million injection to amplify its healthcare system API integrations. Orchestrated by Buckley Ventures, this Series C round kicked NexHealth into the elite unicorn club. It’s techy healthcare!

Vanta:

In June of 2022 Vanta, which helps protect other companies from online bad guys, got $110 million in funding. This made Vanta worth $1.6 billion! They already help more than 3,000 clients, and now they're getting ready to hire more people and get even better at what they do.

Magic Eden:

Magic Eden is a unique place where people buy and sell digital things called NFTs. (You’ve probs heard of these, you may think they’re cool, you may think they’re stupid, either way - they are popular to their niche audience.) They got $130 million in a funding round Series B, and now they're worth $1.6 billion! Electric Capital and Greylock were big supporters of this.

Visby Medical:

Visby Medical is a company known for its medical tests, they got $135 million in funding from Series E and other rounds. Now, they're worth more than $1 billion! Big partners like Ping An Voyager and Lightrock gave them this money.

Single Store:

SingleStore is a company that makes flexible databases, they earned $116 million in funding in a round led by Goldman Sachs. In total, they've raised $382 million! They are making their databases even better, especially for developers.

Class Dojo:

ClassDojo, the edtech tool bridging teachers and students, acquired $125 million in a Tencent-led Series D, valuing the entity at $1.25 billion. As of July 2022, ClassDojo aimed to upscale its virtual metaverse, intending to encompass nearly half of the active 51 million young learners in its realm. (We met someone who works for Class Dojo at this conference, she had super cute nails!!)💅

Incredible Health:

Incredible Health is a platform that helps nurses find jobs, they got $80 million in funding. Now, they are worth $1.65 billion! Base10 Partners led this round because Incredible Health made a lot of money in 2021, five times more than before!

We know this is a lot of information we are throwing in your faces, but it’s pretty fun to see what can be built up from just one small idea. Think you have a good idea for a startup? Wanna earn unicorn status?! I’d hate to burst your bubble, but here I go!! 👉🫧 Only 0.00006% of startups earn this rare and coveted status. We all wanna be unicorns, but alas, we are ponies…

…Ponies that are busy at the conference!!! We hope you enjoyed this little word vom about these companies, but now we have to gallop away and get back to networking!

Logging off, peace ladies!! ❤️ 

Madelyn 🤝 Bailey

Sources:

1. Investopedia: What is a Unicorn?

2. Built in SF: These SF Tech Companies Achieved Unicorn Status in 2022

3. Upsidefoods: Cultivated meat. It’s science (but not rocket science).