Billion Dollar Unicorns: Flipboard Focuses on Monetization

Recent market reports suggest that the global media industry is a $600 billion business with most either already running digital operations for their magazines or in the process of transitioning to them. Despite the high digitization of media, only 20% of ads are currently digital. Social magazine and Billion Dollar Unicorns Club member Flipboard believes that they offer these publishers the ability to make the switch to digital through their service.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: ServiceNow Expands Addressable Market

Billion Dollar Unicorn club member ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) may have been founded to offer IT Service Desk Management capabilities over the cloud. But in recent years, they have diversified their offerings beyond ITSM to include additional enterprise management capabilities including HR, operations, legal, and facilities management. They continue to do so with stellar results as is evident from their recently reported performance.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Dafiti Leading E-Commerce in Latin America

According to a recent eMarketer report, total retail sales in Brazil are estimated to grow 7.3% in 2015 to $460.06 billion. Total retail sales in the country are projected to grow to $545.33 billion by the year 2018. E-commerce is expected to continue to see double digit growth through 2018. Retail e-commerce is expected to grow 15.5% in 2015 to $18.8 billion and continue to grow to $26.2 billion by 2018. Here is the story of Dafiti, Brazil’s representative to the Billion Dollar Unicorn club.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Didi Dache is China’s Uber

According to an eMarketer report published last December, China is the world’s largest smartphone market with over 519.7 million users in the country as of 2014 and is expected to grow to 704.1 million users by the end of 2018. Increasing smartphone penetration is helping Billion Dollar Unicorn players like Didi-Dache increase their market share.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Vancl On A Roller Coaster Ride

A Forrester report released earlier this year estimates the Chinese e-commerce market to grow 20% annually from $307 billion in 2013 to more than $1 trillion by 2019. The growth in the market is being driven by the penetration of Internet in the country as well as adoption of mobile devices. But while the market statistics may be strong, it has not necessarily been an easy ride for all. Billion Dollar Unicorn club contender Vancl shows how difficult things can be.

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Billion Dollar Unicorn: Does Gaurav Dhillon Have Another Winner With SnapLogic?

According to an IDC report, the global cloud market is expected to grow to $118 billion by 2015 and will be worth $200 billion by 2018. The growth will be driven by an increased adoption of the hybrid cloud as organizations are still trying out the cloud and would like to use ways that help bridge the gaps between the comparatively low-security public clouds and the high-security private clouds. Something similar was envisioned by entrepreneur Gaurav Dhillon back in 2006 when he started his second Billion Dollar Unicorn company SnapLogic. >>>

LinkedIn Acquires Lynda.com: An Analysis

Earlier this year, we covered Billion Dollar Unicorn company Lynda.com. Carpinteria, California-based Lynda.com is an online learning company that has seen meteoric rise in valuation in the recent past. Last week, they reached their peak when they were bought for $1.5 billion by professional social network, LinkedIn. This was not only the biggest acquisition by LinkedIn so far, but was also the biggest valuation for an ed-tech company. I have long believed that LinkedIn should get into subscription-based ed-tech for the professional education category, and this acquisition makes perfect sense to me. It also reaffirms my belief that LinkedIn is one of the smartest companies around today.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: RealReal Shows How to Consign Luxury Products

According to Bain & Company research, the personal luxury goods market in the US is estimated to be worth $74 billion. Economic conditions have hurt the segment, but the market has still managed to register a growth of 2% annually. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member RealReal is helping consigners deal with the luxury products.  >>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Powa Puts London on the Map

According to a Wevio report published last month, global B2C ecommerce sales are projected to grow 17.75% in 2015 to $1.74 trillion. The market is projected to grow 10% annually to $2.356 trillion in 2018.  Billion Dollar Unicorn club member Powa Technologies is helping retailers gear up for this growth.

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Niche E-Commerce Works for Fanatics

A recent TechNavio report, Global Licensed Sports Merchandise Market 2015-2019, estimated the licensed sports merchandise market to grow 2.74% annually over the period 2014 through 2019. Recent turnover of the industry is not available, but back in 2011, analysts had estimated the market to be worth $15 billion. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member Fanatics is among the leading players in this industry.

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