It’s a rotten Today, many populations around the world are facing rapid decline. Birth rates in a lot to land to be fallleading to concern about aging population beget unbalanced economies.

That is true if we consider the population at the national level. It’s also true when we consider the rate at which new unicorns are being born, measured by the rate at which global startups are reaching the $1 billion valuation threshold. Once rare, unicorns became much more pedestrian during the 2020-2021 peak of the latest venture capital cycle. What is old is new again – we see the formation of unicorn slowly.

And fast. Per Crunchbase Datathe rate at which unicorns are born has fallen by almost 80% from its peak, which was reached a year ago in particular.

From a trickle to a rush to a trickle

That unicorn formation is slowing down shouldn’t be surprising; after all, we’ve seen a slowdown in the rate at which the first unicorn rounds were paid out. With mega rounds slowing down, it makes sense that fewer startups could attract new funding that pushes their valuation above $1 billion.