To understand what a startup is, it is best to start from its etymology, which is English: to get going, to start up. The term has been refined and today a startup is a company that has been recently established on the basis of an innovative idea and, often, but not always, of high technological value.
Incubators and accelerators are two important tools to help startups grow, especially in the early stages of their development. Incubators are programs that offer logistical and technical support to people with brilliant business ideas but limited resources. They can be free or paid. Some are financed with public funds. The incubation period usually lasts about 36 months, during which young entrepreneurs turn their ideas into business realities.
Accelerators come into play once a startup has completed the incubation period. They are designed for startups with well-structured business models that generate good revenue and focus on business growth and market conquest. Typically, the acceleration process lasts about 6 months .
A startup goes through several phases , and each el salvador whatsapp data one requires new financing that is attempted to be obtained through different rounds. The main phases are the following:
Pre-Seed and Bootstrap : There is no definitive product or service yet, nor a structured company.
Seed : the idea is validated, the project becomes a reality.
Early Stage : the product or service is perfected to adapt it to the market. Investors are sought.
Early Growth : first phase of growth.
Growth : exponential growth of customers.
Exit : the startup is listed on the stock exchange, is transferred to another company or bought back by the founders.
What is a unicorn startup?
In 2021, the total valuation of startups worldwide was $5.15 trillion , an increase of 22% from the previous year. This growth was led by the United States, which accounts for 67% of the total valuation. This is followed by China with 15% and the rest of the world with the remaining 18%.
Investing in a startup represents a risk, but also an opportunity . Many startups fail (around 90%), due to problems generally related to the lack of experience of the founders, the poor economic sustainability of the project or a product or service rejected by the market. In some lucky cases, startups acquire a great potential value that, if it reaches one billion dollars, places the company in the unicorn category.
According to recent research, a company has only a 0.000006% chance of actually becoming a unicorn . On average, it takes at least seven years to achieve this. It is the venture capitalists and investors who participated in the financing of the company who make the billion-dollar valuation, based on its growth and development potential.
Examples of successful startups
Over the past decade, low interest rates and the numerous stories of success, fame and fortune coming out of Silicon Valley have caused huge amounts of public and private investment to flow into venture capital funds created to support the creation and development of high-potential high-tech companies. This has led to the startup boom .
China and the United States are the countries where most unicorn companies are located . While the American examples are well-known (Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, etc.), some of the most recent ones are Chinese, including ByteDance, owner of Tik Tok and valued at 140 billion dollars: it has been a unicorn since 2017. Another example of Chinese success is Ant Group, affiliated with the Alibaba Group, owner of one of the main global payment platforms, with a valuation exceeding 200 billion dollars.
There are also examples of very successful startups in Spain, such as Glovo or Wallapop , and European ecosystems, less saturated and with lower valuations than those in the United States and China, are now among the most interesting for investors. The future belongs to ideas.