<P> A unicorn is a privately held startup company valued at over $1 billion . The term was coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures . A decacorn is a word used for those companies over $10 billion, while hectocorn is the appropriate term for such a company valued over $100 billion . According to TechCrunch, there were 279 unicorns as of March 2018 . The largest unicorns included Ant Financial, Didi Chuxing, Uber, Xiaomi, Airbnb, Palantir, and Pinterest . Dropbox is the most recent decacorn that turned into a public company on March 23, 2018 . </P> <P> Bill Gurley, a partner at Benchmark predicted in March 2015 and earlier that the rapid increase in the number of unicorns may "have moved into a world that is both speculative and unsustainable", that will leave in its wake what he terms "dead unicorns". Also he said that the main reason of Unicorns' valuation is the "excessive amount of money" available for them . Research by Stanford professors suggests the average unicorn is overvalued by 48% . </P>

What does it mean to be a unicorn in business