The Definitive List of Digital Health Unicorns
A startup unicorn refers to a privately held startup with a valuation of over $1 billion. The term "unicorn" was coined by VC (and lead investor in my last startup!) Aileen Lee in 2013 to represent what was at that time a rare achievement. Now, it’s a little more common, and today, there are over 60 privately-held digital health unicorns.
A business only has a 0.00006% chance of becoming a unicorn. For those who do become a unicorn, it takes, on average, seven years from founding to achieve this valuation. For venture-backed startups, the chances are a little better: a venture-backed seed-stage startup has an estimated 2.5% chance of becoming a unicorn. Read more about my experience investing in unicorns here.
Since 2016, I’ve kept a list of digital health companies, including those valued at over $1 billion, M&A (over $100 million), and those that are publicly traded. I’m happy to share the list of unicorns below. You can also support my work and download it here. The full spreadsheet includes much, much more.
A couple of things to note:
A company is typically given a valuation during a major financial event, like a venture capital raise, acquisition, or IPO (between these events, companies do internal valuations— called 409A valuations—to price employee stock options, but these rarely become public and are generally much lower)
Some companies proudly announce their valuations, especially when reaching unicorn status, while others choose to keep their funding rounds and valuations private
A company might announce reaching a $1 billion valuation but later raise money at a lower valuation without making it public—meaning some "unicorns" in our data may no longer be worth $1 billion
This list, based on public data, shows clear patterns but may not capture every detail
So, without further adieu, here’s the current list of privately held digital health unicorns as of November 2024:
Want an updated list with even more data points? Download the List of Digital Health Companies spreadsheet. This includes a list of private digital health companies valued at $1 billion+, the year they became a unicorn, plus 37+ former unicorns and when/why they were delisted.