Hunting Unicorns: Eyeing Long Island’s Next Billion-Dollar Startup

July 18, 2019

If you think unicorns are mythic creatures, you probably haven’t been following finance. A unicorn company is a private startup with a valuation of more than $1 billion.

“It refers to emerging companies with billion-dollar valuations,” says Alon Kapen, partner in Farrell Fritz’s corporate practice group and head of its emerging companies and venture capital practice group. “Lots of companies are valued at multiples of a billion dollars that have been around for many years.”

It’s not easy to identify companies with such a high valuation, because private companies rarely publicize financials.

Most officially become unicorns only after much smaller funding rounds at a ratio valuing them at $1 billion.

“Once the deal closes, they typically provide data on their rounds,” Kapen says.