The VC Leagues: Top Unicorn Hunters and Gatherers

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CB Insights:

Sequoia Capital continues to retain its spot as the top investor in unicorns, with 17 currently in their portfolio including Instacart, AirBnB, and Square. Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz were tied for second place with 15 unicorn companies each. Some other interesting points:

  • 4 of the top 8 investors in unicorns are large, typically public market investors (mutual fund, bulge-bracket investment banks, etc.). Goldman, Fidelity Investments, Wellington Management, and T. Rowe Price all have 12 or more US unicorns in their portfolios.
  • There are now 43 institutional investors with at least 5 US unicorns in their portfolio, compared to 14 when we did this analysis in early March.

The proportion of unicorn investments that were early-stage offers another way to gauge the firms’ relative investment prowess… Some of the best investors on this list are SV Angel (12 unicorns with 9 investments at the early stage), Y-Combinator (6 unicorns and 6 early-stage investments in unicorns), as well as First Round Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Lowercase Capital.