unicorn

‘Survey of Unicorn Creators Uncovers Underdog Nature and Rise of Female Creators’

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The study (“Unicorn Founder DNA Report) by Defiance Capital of 845 unicorns and 2,018 unicorn founders set out to look at the “DNA” of unicorn founders, concentrating on the US and UK (no EU/European) from 2013 to 2023, to define the common traits of these kinds of founders. During the last decade, all top Seed funds were generalist funds, and the market for Seed funds is highly fragmented. Only 34% of unicorn founders had worked at an elite employer prior to founding a unicorn, suggesting a McKinsey or similar background is not a prerequisite to success. Dorffer, who intends now to produce a podcast with many of the unicorn founders surveyed, said: “The stories that are coming out show crazy determination. As a female founder, you have to work twice as hard and take twice as many meetings to raise the money.

art “Introducing Uzumart: Uzbekistan’s Groundbreaking E-Commerce Unicorn”

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Uzum, an e-commerce startup offering online shopping, fintech and food deliveries to millions of customers in Uzbekistan, has raised $114 million in funding, becoming the country’s first unicorn with a valuation of $1.16 billion. Fintech startups dominated the market with a 30% share, followed by e-commerce startups at 27%, according to estimates (PDF) by the Asian Development Bank. “We want to expand the products, enhance the infrastructure of our e-commerce, and fund our fintech,” Djumaev said. By the end of this year, Uzum plans to combine all its businesses into two super apps: one for its consumer-focused offerings, and another for its business-focused products. However, he doesn’t see any competition in Uzbekistan, as Uzum has the advantage of enjoying different margins across products, and can make higher margins by combining its e-commerce and fintech services.

Ontario Educators Create a Groundbreaking Unicorn in Indian Financial Technology: Perfios

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Teachers’ Venture Growth, the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, is investing $80 million in Perfios, an Indian fintech that provides real-time credit underwriting solutions to banks and other financial institutions. The new investment values Perfios at a valuation of over $1 billion. Bengaluru-based Perfios provides real-time data aggregation and analysis tools to financial institutions, enabling them to streamline their customer journeys and make more informed decisions. Perfios said it delivers 8.2 billion data points to banks and other financial institutions every year to facilitate faster decisioning, and processes 1.7 billion transactions a year with an AUM of $36 billion. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, one of Canada’s largest pension funds, has ramped up its interest in India in recent years.

Qonto, the French fintech unicorn, gains ownership of Regate after securing substantial funds.

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And it is using an undisclosed portion of its cash reserve to acquire Regate, an accounting and financial automation platform. Qonto originally started with online business accounts with debit cards specifically tailored for small and medium businesses. After a while, Regate will be integrated in Qonto directly to improve several accounting automation features of Qonto, such as invoicing, accounts payables, accounts receivables, etc. Qonto finds itself in a different position from Payfit, another French unicorn (or former unicorn) that provides a software-as-a-service tool focused on payroll. As many fintech startups are struggling to raise a new funding round, Qonto could become a consolidator in the space.

AI Startup Founded by Ola’s Creator Reaches Unicorn Status with $50M in Funding

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Krutrim, an AI startup founded by Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal, said it has raised a funding round that values it at $1 billion. It’s also the first Indian AI startup to become a unicorn, it said. Matrix Partners India — which has also backed Aggarwal’s other two startups, ride-hailing firm Ola and EV startup Ola Electric — led the $50 million “first round” in Krutrim, it said Friday. The startup plans to launch a conversational AI assistant that understands and speaks multiple Indian languages, the startup said. The startup plans to make a beta version of its eponymous chatbot available to consumers next month and follow it with rolling out APIs to developers and enterprises.

ElevenLabs’ Voice Cloning Technology Secures $80M Funding, Earns Unicorn Status

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Staniszewski says that he and Dabkowski, who grew up in Poland, were inspired to create voice cloning tools by poorly dubbed American films. Paying customers can upload voice samples to craft new styles using ElevenLabs’ voice cloning. The infamous message board 4chan, known for its conspiratorial content, used ElevenLabs’ tools to share hateful messages mimicking celebrities like actress Emma Watson. Then there’s the elephant in the room: the existential threat platforms like ElevenLabs pose to the voice acting industry. Even this didn’t please some voice actors, however — including SAG-AFTRA’s own members.

“Return to the Unicorn Club: Aileen Lee and Cowboy Ventures”

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This is our interview show, where we sit down with interesting, knowledgeable folk and dive deep into their favorite topics. This time around, we invited Cowboy Ventures’ Aileen Lee to chat through her massive new article concerning the unicorn world. If you didn’t know, it was Lee who initially coined the term “unicorn” in a TechCrunch article back in 2013. Lee talked us through the data and taught us all sorts of new terms. You can sort of understand what one means when they say “unicorpse” or “zombiecorn,” but apparently there are even more exotic unicorn forms out there.