The 10 most valuable private companies in the world

In the startup world, a ‘unicorn’ is a private company valued at $1 billion or more — and it’s a status all aspiring firms dream of achieving.

This year so far, 38 companies have joined the list of unicorns, according to TechCrunch. These firms span across industries, from supply chain management to financial technology and health tech.

While it’s not as rare as it once was for a startup to gain unicorn status (some 2,500 firms founded over the past 20 years have reached the milestone, according to research from consultancy Bain & Co.), just a fraction of these companies are able to continue to scale to new heights.

Some of these companies have reached valuations in the hundreds of billions of dollars — and continue to barrel forward. Read on to see which 10 startups from around the world have become the most valuable private firms, according to an analysis of Carbon Finance, CB Insights, and Bloomberg data by Visual Capitalist.