Billion Dollar Unicorns: Evernote Cracks the Freemium Model

Most apps operate on a freemium-based model, but converting the free user to a paying member is a tough hurdle to cross. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member Evernote seems to have cracked the code for it.

>>>

Featured Videos

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Cloudera Leverages Open-Source Hadoop to Create a Multi-Billion Dollar Business

A recent IDC research expects the Big Data technology and services market to grow 26.4% annually through 2018 to be worth $41.5 billion. The growth translates to six times that of the overall information technology market. Palo Alto-based Big Data vendor Cloudera is one of the prominent Billion Dollar Unicorn players in this market.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Fat Startup Adaptive Insights Leading in Cloud CPM

Fat startup Adaptive Insights is another proud member of the Billion Dollar Unicorn club. They are a leading provider in the cloud-based Corporate Performance Management (CPM) solution market that IDC estimates to be worth $33 billion. Here is their story on how they made it to the club.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: OnDeck Scoring in Small Businesses Instant Loans

According to a survey of small businesses conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to process a loan, a small business has to spend at least 26 hours, approach 2.6 financial institutions, and submit 2.7 loan applications. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member OnDeck is trying to make a big difference in cutting all this effort.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Shazam Makes it to the Club

Here is an interesting story of music recognition app provider Shazam, which has slowly made its spot in the Billion Dollar Unicorn club. Today, Shazam is a lot more than just a music recognition service.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: HubSpot Sustains Solid Growth Post IPO

According to a survey of small and medium businesses conducted by CAN Capitol, 38% of SMB owners plan to increase their advertising and marketing activities this year. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member HubSpot is a rising star in this market, focusing on the inbound marketing segment for these SMBs.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Stripe Exploring Tie-Ups for Growth

A Forrester research estimates the mobile payment market to grow to $90 billion in total spending in the US alone by the year 2017. One player making big waves in the market is Billion Dollar Unicorn club member Stripe.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Nextdoor’s Valuation Skyrocketing With No Sign of Revenues

There are several companies that have surprisingly reached the stature of Billion Dollar Unicorns without generating any revenues or any significant financial metric to boast of. The valuation of these companies are driven by operational metrics, future earnings potential, and venture firms who appear to have been thoroughly irresponsible by providing valuations that make no sense.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Veeam Wants To Stay Private

According to a report by Gartner, the enterprise backup recovery software market was worth $4.7 billion in 2013. BAAR, Switzerland-based Veeam is a Billion Dollar Unicorn club member in the enterprise backup, recovery and data de-duplication segment which is making big waves in the industry.

>>>

Billion Dollar Unicorns: Gilt Groupe Delays IPO

Over the last year, several flash sales sites have seen their growth plans foiled as the flash sales fad has cooled down. Even ultra fast growing such as Zulily have taken the heat and seen their stock prices fall. Here is another Billion Dollar Unicorn club member Gilt Groupe that has been trying to go public for a while now. But things don’t seem to be looking up.

>>>