Equity Newsletter: Sorting the Unicorns from the Gorillas

Gorillas in the mire

Gorillas, the to-your-door grocery service, has been a huge success – on paper. But there are signs that the company itself may be unravelling: a record-breaking expansion has seen the company grow to over 10,000 employees and raise over €300m in VC funding from some of the world’s most influential investors. 

But the wheels may be coming off with disgruntled employees highlighting problems with a hostile work environment, exploitation of workers, data breaches and the business model which is burning through cash. 

Gorillas is facing an uphill struggle to get more funding just as they need it to see off the gathering competition. Whether they can survive or not remains to be seen, but in their present form, the signs don’t look good. 

An outbreak of unicorns

Unicorns – $1bn startups – are no longer the mythical beasts that only existed in fable. They are very real and becoming more common with 48 new unicorn startups created in November 2021 alone. 

This is against a backdrop of a record $65bn of global venture funding in November. 

The financial sector saw the creation of six unicorns: 

• Philippines-based remittances and loan product Mynt 
• UK-based buy now, pay later company Zilch
• San Francisco-based small business credit startup Fundbox 
• New York-based payroll services company Wrapbook
• London-based Thought Machine for cloud banking 
• India-based consumer credit card challenger Slice

Cryptocurrency companies remain popular with the following unicorns being named: 

• Connecticut-based digital currency and token investor Digital Currency Group 
• New York-based crypto-digital asset exchange Gemini
• Miami-based payments infrastructure for crypto MoonPay
• Switzerland headquartered blockchain developer ConsenSys

Take home message: the money is out there, the appetite is sharp and there are opportunities to be had all over the world.