Meet The Blockchain Unicorns Mid Year 2024

 

MEET THE BLOCKCHAIN UNICORNS MID YEAR 2024

This week we announced our Mid Year 2024 list of blockchain unicorns – private blockchain enterprises and tokenized crypto projects with valuations exceeding $1 billion. The opening exhibit is taken from the report and provides a high level overview.

In summary:

  • The first six months of 2024 saw worldwide progress in adoption and regulation leading to blockchain enterprise unicorns reaching an all-time high of 108

  • Tokenized blockchain projects worth over $1bn rose more than 30% in the first half of 2024 to a total of  78 driven by rebounding token prices

  • Blockchain Coinvestors is invested in 59 of the former and 36 of the latter, giving our investment strategy perhaps the broadest coverage of blockchain unicorns of any investor

  • Together, blockchain enterprise and tokenized crypto project unicorns now comprise ~15% of the world’s 1,229 unicorn companies

The entire report can be downloaded by clicking here.

We will present the full results of our mid year findings during the upcoming Meet the Blockchain Unicorns Mid-Year 2024 webinars on July 23rd at 7:00am and 12:00pm PT. 

Why We Track Blockchain Unicorns

Before launching into the report, let's remind ourselves why tracking the blockchain unicorns matters:

  • Venture capital funds seek large exits with most firms finding that 10% or less of investments they make exit at a 5x or better, returning 80 to 90% of the capital they get back.

  • In other words, venture capital is a power curve distribution of outcomes with a small number of large investments driving the exceptional returns of the asset class.

  • This is the rationale for diversification, since it becomes critical to catch a few 'unicorns' in your investment net.

  • So by tracking the blockchain unicorns, as well as who backed them, we gain important insights into our chosen blockchain strategy, which maximizes global diversified coverage of early stage blockchain companies and projects by investing with and alongside the leading blockchain venture capital firms.

  • One of the ways we track the success of our investment strategy is to see what penetration rate we have of blockchain unicorns. 

By this measure our strategies are exceptionally successful.

Mid year 2024 we have capital in 95 (51%) of the 186 global blockchain unicorn companies and tokenized crypto projects.

To hear more about our currently open Blockchain Venture Fund of Funds (Fund VII), please contact IR@blockchaincoinvestors.com.

Unicorns Powered By Exponential Technologies

To give you a sense of the power of our investment strategy, let's take a quick look at other exponential technologies to see how they compare. CB Insights tracks global unicorns by sector in what they call the 'Global Unicorn Club'.  In their most recent report they find 1,229 unicorns as can be seen here.

Blockchain is a horizontal technology, which means it is being, or will be used, in every industry and sector. As a result, CB Insights folds the blockchain unicorns into their primary industry sectors. For example, a blockchain company focused primarily on financial services would be in the CB Insights Financial Services industry; a blockchain unicorn primarily focused on healthcare would be in the CB Insights Healthcare and Life Sciences industry.

When we pull all of those blockchain unicorns out, and consider them as a distinct group, we find that of the world's unicorns, fully 15% are blockchain focused. This includes the tokenized crypto projects like Ethereum and Solana, but even if you pull those out, 9% of the world's unicorns are blockchain based.

This is remarkable given blockchain was only invented in 2008/2009. The value accretion in our space has been, and continues to be, sensational.

Blockchain Enterprise Unicorns

The first six months of 2024 saw worldwide progress in adoption and regulation leading to blockchain enterprise unicorns reaching an all-time high of 108. Our fund of funds have capital exposure to 59 (55%) of these blockchain enterprises.

The distribution of the blockchain enterprise unicorns closely aligns with our fund of fund allocation strategy:

  • North America continues to be home to the largest number of blockchain enterprise unicorns at 61 in total;

  • Followed by Asia and Europe, with 16 apiece;

  • Central America follows with 6;

  • Canada with 5 and;

  • Africa with 3.

Our target allocation for Fund VII is 50% North America, and roughly 25% to each of Asia and Europe. We believe we have good coverage of all of the major blockchain hubs globally.

Tokenized Crypto Project Unicorns

As we have previously explained, blockchain teams have the option of either raising equity through traditional funding rounds, or by launching crypto tokens to their communities and supporters to raise their capital:

  • Tokenized blockchain projects worth over $1bn rose more than 30% in the first half of 2024 to a total of 78 driven by rebounding token prices

  • Here at Blockchain Coinvestors we have capital invested in 36 (46%) of these tokenized crypto project unicorns

  • Our investment strategy focuses on the protocol, DeFi, and NFT platform tokens

We believe the most attractive time to invest into tokenized crypto projects is during their private formation and seed phases, if you can add value to the project leads and if they will provide you an allocation. This is the focus of our early stage token fund strategy (Fund IV). To hear more please contact IR@blockchaincoinvestors.com.

Public Blockchain Companies

There are now 32 public blockchain companies with a good number in process for IPOs and SPAC mergers.

Conclusion

This year, blockchain value is rising, and this is reflected in both the number of blockchain enterprise unicorns and tokenized crypto projects worth more than $1bn. In just a few years, blockchain now captures almost 15% of the Global Unicorn Club if enterprises and projects are added together.

The best way to invest into this accelerating value creation phase is to be an early stage venture investor. That is what we focus on here at Blockchain Coinvestors.

Please let us know your reactions, and do ask for the Fund of Funds (Fund VII) and Early Stage Token Fund (Fund IV) materials from ir@blockchaincoinvesors.com.

Thank you for reading.

The Blockchain Coinvestors Partners

About Blockchain Coinvestors

Blockchain Coinvestors is the best way to invest in blockchain businesses. Our vision is that digital monies, commodities, and assets are inevitable and all of the world’s financial infrastructure must be upgraded. Our mission is to provide broad coverage of early stage blockchain investments and access to emerging blockchain unicorns. Blockchain Coinvestors’ investment strategies are now in their 10th year and are backed by 400+ investors globally. To date we have invested in 40+ pure play blockchain venture capital funds in the Americas, Asia, and Europe and in a combined portfolio of 1000+ blockchain companies and projects including 80+ blockchain unicorns. Blockchain Coinvestors’ first fund of funds ranks in the top decile amongst all funds in its category on both Pitchbook and Preqin. Headquartered in San Francisco with a presence in London, New York, Grand Cayman, Zug and Zurich, the alternative investment management firm was co-founded by Alison Davis and Matthew Le Merle.

“The best way to invest in blockchain businesses”

 
Matthew Le Merle