50 Companies That May Be the Next Start-Up Unicorns @ The New York Times.
It used to be a rare thing when start-ups were valued at $1 billion or more by their investors. Now it’s become so common that there are at least 131 start-ups boasting such valuations and a term — “unicorns” — to refer to the companies.
So which start-ups are next to reach the unicorn level? CB Insights, a research firm that tracks venture capital and start-ups, recently ran a data screen for The New York Times to answer the question. The exact valuations of the companies are hard to pin down because the start-ups are private and are not required to disclose their finances, but CB Insights determined that they might be on a path toward a $1 billion value through an algorithm that analyzed factors including amount of financing raised, employee turnover and social media mentions.
On the NYTimes list of 50 the following are hardware companies: 3DRobotics & Rethink Robotics.