End of Easy Money: Unicorn Bubble Implodes, Normalcy Returns

July 05, 2023

by Wolf Richter Wolf Street

AI hype & hoopla replaces crypto, blockchain, and FinTech hype & hoopla. You’ve got to go with the times.

In the second quarter 2023, only 12 venture-capital-backed startups in the US became “unicorns”: meaning they received funding that valued them at over $1 billion. In Q1, 9 startups became unicorns in this manner, the lowest since January 2018, according to data by PitchBook.

In Q3 2021, the peak of the easy-money unicorn startup bubble, 95 startups became unicorns. In the year 2021 – the last year of the Fed’s easy money – a total of 362 new unicorns appeared in the US, with a combined valuation of nearly $1 trillion!