Cowboy Ventures 2023 Unicorn Analysis — Sector Deep Dives
| Author | Cowboy Ventures |
|---|---|
| Published | December 2023 |
| Format | Report |
| Original | Read the original |
TL;DR — A 20-slide Cowboy Ventures deck breaking 2023’s unicorns into 19 sectors, with a chart and short commentary on the most valuable companies in each.
The deck is the companion to Cowboy Ventures’ “Welcome Back to the Unicorn Club, 10 Years Later,” the firm’s follow-up to the 2013 analysis that coined “unicorn.” It opens with a bar chart of 2023’s 20 most valuable unicorns, coloured by whether each is unexited, exited by IPO or exited by M&A. Every following slide takes one sector, charts its 20 highest-valued companies, and adds two or three short paragraphs of commentary. Every slide cites Pitchbook and Crunchbase, as of December 2023.
The sectors run: fintech, enterprise SaaS and services, vertical SaaS, enterprise infrastructure, healthcare, hardware, security, crypto and web3, AI/ML-native apps and infrastructure, climate/energy/agriculture, B2C e-commerce and retail, logistics and supply chain, mobility, B2B marketplaces, consumer marketplaces, real estate, gaming, consumer social and entertainment, and learning and development.
The commentary keeps comparing the list with 2013. Fintech and enterprise SaaS are each 16% of the list and vertical SaaS 13%. Healthcare went from no companies in 2013 to 55 (10%). AI/ML-native companies average six years old and are already 7%. Climate went from one unicorn (The Climate Corporation) to 6%. Gaming went from Zynga alone to 14 companies. Some claims are forward-looking: 70% of crypto unicorns had not raised publicly since 2022, Wiz reached $100M ARR in 18 months, and consumer social and learning are called categories “ripe” for new entrants.
What it is: A venture firm’s own reading of third-party valuation data, published alongside its blog post. The counts and percentages are Cowboy’s classification of Pitchbook/Crunchbase records, and the sector commentary is the firm’s opinion, partly pointing readers to its own investment theses.
Where this came from
- A Google Slides deck shared on Google Drive.
- Published by Cowboy Ventures, embedded in its January 2024 post Welcome Back to the Unicorn Club, 10 Years Later.
20 pages. A copy is archived locally against link rot; the header links the original source.