Race of the Rest: The Unicorn Trend has gone Global

Love this pic, had to post it again, makes a perfect background for this topic.

It was Steve Case, former AOL, who has championed the term 'Rise of the Rest' on the emergence of tech hubs and VC out of traditional coastal zones in US.

This is not a US domestic phenomenon, the Unicorn trend (startups valued over $1 Bn) has gone global after being in the works for a few years now. See here for educated predictions back in 2015 (somehow neglected at that time, now endorsed by stats).

Thanks to CB insights who just released their Christmas newsletter yesterday, we have some closing year stats to share:

2016 saw close to 300 deals of VC-backed companies in overlooked regions such asLatin America, Africa and Oceania scoring record numbers in terms of # of startup deals.

In terms of overall investment in these regions, this year ended with $1.3 Bn, with three years in a row now consistentlyover $1Bn in capital deployed.

More interesting even, and, as anticipated almost two years ago, flashback here:

of the 1.063 deals done in these three regions since 2009, Latin America alone took almost half of them or 47%.

The world is truly changing.

Happy Holidays

/ed