Source: IT Orange Author: Zhang Junyu Cover Image: Pixabay
IT Orange Unicorn Club included 7 new unicorns in the United States in the first half of 2024. Let's take a look at what kind of companies they are.
*New Unicorns in United States in 2024, Source: IT Orange Unicorn Club
- Aven: Credit card management platform
Founded in 2019, Aven is a credit card management platform. Aven combines the ease of use of a credit card with the economics of a home equity line of credit (HELOC). It functions similarly to other credit cards, where people can make everyday purchases and get unlimited 1.5% cashback. Aven is currently building consumer finance tools to develop cutting-edge technology to be the lowest-cost, most convenient, and most transparent way to access funds. Aven's first product, the Aven Home Card, is backed by home equity, allowing homeowners to access home equity in minutes, with the lowest interest rates, best rewards, maximum amounts, and maximum flexibility – as little as $0 to get, use, and cancel. Since its inception, Aven has raised more than $1.5 billion in client capital, saved more than $100 million in interest and raised $280 million through equity. So far, Aven has raised 5 rounds of funding, with a total funding amount of hundreds of millions of dollars. Aven has joined the unicorn ranks with a $142 million Series D funding round led by Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst, with participation from existing investors including Caffeinated Capital, Electric Capital, Founders Fund and The General Partnership. Aven is valued at $1 billion after the deal.
- Fisher Investments：资产管理服务商
Founded by Ken Fisher in 1979, Fisher Investments is an asset management service provider dedicated to providing personalized investment management and financial management services tailored to the needs of our clients. Since its inception, the company's goal has been to put the interests of its clients first and help them achieve their investment goals. Fisher Investments has successfully managed portfolios for over 40 years with an always client-focused attitude and extensive investment capabilities. Fisher Investments and its subsidiaries focus on three main practice areas – institutional, United States private client and international private client. Today, Fisher Investments and its subsidiaries operate in 14 offices serving more than 155,000 clients worldwide. As of December 31, 2023, Fisher Investments and its subsidiaries had more than $276 billion in assets under management worldwide—including more than $237 billion from private investors, more than $38 billion from institutional investors, and more than $4 billion from United States small and medium-sized business retirement plans. In June, Advent and a division of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority ADIA proposed to acquire a minority stake in Fisher Investments. The acquirer will invest at least $2.5 billion, valuing Fisher Investments at $12.75 billion, and the deal is expected to close by the end of 2024.
- Weka. Yes, I'm going to
Weka (WekaIO) is an artificial intelligence data platform company based in Campbell, California, founded in 2013. Weka's core product is the WEKA Data Platform, a software-defined, AI-native data platform that helps data-driven enterprises seamlessly and sustainably store, process, and manage data in the cloud and on-premises, transforming stagnant data silos into dynamic data pipelines that support next-generation workloads such as AI, machine learning, and high-performance computing. At present, the company's SDS scales storage to hundreds of petabytes, tens of millions of IO/s, and sub-millisecond latency; Also engineering in Tel Aviv, Israel. Weka has raised seven rounds of funding since its inception, including a $2 million Series C investment from Norwest Venture Partners in 2019 and a $135 million Series D investment from Samsung Catalyst Fund, NVIDIA and others in 2022. On May 15 of this year, Weka announced that it had raised $140 million in a Series E funding round led by Valor Equity Partners, bringing the post-funding valuation to $1.6 billion, officially joining the ranks of "unicorns". The oversubscribed round attracted participation from existing shareholders including NVIDIA, Generation Investment Management, Atreides Management, and others.
- Cognition：加密货币
Founded in San Francisco in November 2023, Cognition is a cryptocurrency company that has shifted its business to artificial intelligence as the technology has grown in popularity. The company's founders are Scott Wu, co-founder and CEO of lunchclub, Walden Yan, and Steven Hao, a former engineer at Scale AI. Among them, Walden Yan is currently a student at Harvard University and plans to graduate this year. Since its founding, Cognition has released an AI coding assistant called Devin, which has been called "the first AI engineer". Cognition found that Devin correctly resolved 13.86% of the issues end-to-end, far exceeding the previous optimal level of 1.96%, significantly improving the correct rate of problem solving. In April this year, Cognition raised two rounds of funding with a total value of $175 million, led by Founders Fund, with a post-investment valuation of $2 billion (about 14.4 billion yuan) and directly entered the unicorn industry.
- Xaira lagos:AI
In May 2023, Xaira therapeutics, an artificial intelligence pharmaceutical company, announced the launch of an AI-powered pharmaceutical company to accelerate the drug discovery and development process. The three strengths of Xaira therapeutics are "bringing together well-known experts from industry and academia", "learning models using the latest drug development devices", and "multiple therapeutic products". Co-founder David Baker is Professor of Biochemistry and Director of the Protein Design Institute at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and includes 2022 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi, as well as scientific heavyweights such as former Johnson & Johnson director and former 23andMe director. In April 2024, the company received a $1 billion Series A investment, led by ARCH Venture Partners, Foresite Labs, and followed by F-Prime, NEA, Sequoia Capital and other investment institutions, with a post-investment valuation of $6 billion, making this investment the world's largest medical seed round in 2024 so far.
- Flip.Shop: Social e-commerce platform
Founded in 2019, Flip is a social e-commerce platform. The front-end of Flip is in the form of short videos similar to TikTok, and the back-end is an e-commerce platform where users can place orders for products while swiping videos. The best feature is that viewers can earn a variety of rewards for participating in video discussions, including cash, points, and gift cards, which can be used to purchase any product on Flip and even transfer directly to a customer's bank account. In addition, Flip has partnered with AppLovin, the world's leading marketing platform, to leverage AppLovin's AXON technology to relaunch its marketing platform for brands. Since its inception, the company has raised a total of more than $200 million in five rounds of financing, including TLV Partners, lool ventures, BDMI and other well-known investment institutions. In April 2024, Flip announced a $144 million Series C funding round led by Streamlined Ventures, which is now valued at $1.05 billion pre-deal.
- Figure.ai: Humanoid robots
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in San Nivel, California, Figure.ai is a general humanoid robotics company. The company's goal is to develop universal humanoid robots that can work in different environments and handle a variety of tasks. Figure AI was founded by Brett Adcock, who has extensive experience in the business field and a successful entrepreneurial journey, and has been dubbed "Musk 2.0" by the media. The company's technology team includes CTO Jerry Pratt and other members from well-known institutions such as IHMC, Boston Dynamics, Tesla, Waymo, and Google X. Figure.ai launched its first product, Figure 01, less than a year after its founding, with the ability to learn quickly and adapt to basic tasks such as moving boxes and making coffee by watching human demonstration videos. Figure.ai has conducted a total of 4 fundraising activities since its establishment, and investors include well-known investment institutions such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and NVIDIA. In February 2024, the company received a strategic investment of $675 million, co-led by NVIDIA and Amazon, bringing the post-investment valuation to $2 billion.
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