INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News
More posts by this contributorIt takes a lot more than a good idea and the right timing to build a billion-dollar company
Talent, focus, operational effectiveness and a healthy dose of luck are all components of a successful tech startup
major growth vector for rapidly scaling, highly valued technology companies
Nearly two years later, we wanted to revisit that first post because things move quickly, and there is a new crop of companies in the
unicorn spotlight these days
Which ones are the most active in the MA market these daysThe most acquisitive U.S
unicorns todayBefore displaying the U.S
venture-backed technology companies that have earned a valuation of $1 billion or more
Crunchbase tracks these companies in its Unicorns hub
unicorns were founded in or after 2003, following the first tech bubble
Keep in mind this is based on a snapshot of Crunchbase data, so the numbers and ranking may have changed by the time you read this
To maintain legibility and a reasonable size, we cut off the chart at companies that made seven or more acquisitions.As one would expect,
acquired 23 companies at the time of our last analysis, went public weeks later and has since acquired two more companies (HelloSign for
Airbnb made six more acquisitions since March 2017, most recently Danish event space and meeting venue marketplace Gaest.com
Open-source software containerization company Docker, photo-sharing and search site Pinterest, enterprise social media management
has made 10 acquisitions over the past two years
Earlier this month, The We Company bought Euclid, a company that analyzes physical space utilization and tracks visitors using Wi-Fi
of its commercial spaces.In its bid to solidify its position as the dominant consumer cryptocurrency player, Coinbase has been on quite the
ride-hailing and transportation service company
Lyft has made 10 known acquisitions since it was founded in 2012
Its latest MA deal was urban bike service Motivate, which Lyft acquired in June 2018
Here too, the Lyft-Uber rivalry manifests in structural sameness
Is a company successful because of the startups it bought along the way Or did it buy companies because it was successful and had an opening
deals, then in dollar volume for sure) continue to raise money in the name of growth
Growth can come the old-fashioned way, by establishing a market position and expanding it
Or, in the name of rapid scaling and ostensibly maximizing investor returns, MA provides a lateral route into new markets or a way to
further entrench the status quo
