- Defiance Capital’s study reveals 70% of unicorns have “underdog founders.”
- Most unicorn founders hold degrees from top universities.
- The study highlights opportunities for funds to invest in underrepresented founders.
The “underdog founders”
Defiance Capital’s “Unicorn Founder DNA Report” analyzed 845 unicorns and 2,018 unicorn founders in the U.S. and U.K. from 2013 to 2023.
The study revealed that 70% of unicorns have “underdog founders,” including immigrants, women, and people of color.
The percentage of unicorns with a female founder has increased significantly, reaching 17% in 2023, compared to the previous all-male founder landscape.
Education, experience, and funding trends
The study found that 53% of unicorn founders have degrees from the top 10 global universities, and 49% of unicorn CEOs had STEM degrees, with 64% of female founding CEOs holding STEM degrees.
Interestingly, the market to invest in potential unicorns is highly fragmented at the seed stage, with no VC fund, except for SV Angel (6.4%) and YC (10%), getting into more than 2.8% (Sequoia) of unicorns.
Christian Dorffer, founder of Defiance Capital, emphasized the importance of the study’s findings, stating that the hunger, self-belief, ingenuity, and resilience found in unicorn founders make sense considering that 62% had immigrant founders and 17% of new unicorns last year had female founders.
Dorffer believes there is a significant opportunity for new funds to specifically seek out these underrepresented founders, given the fragmentation of the market and the challenges they face in fundraising.
