Unicorn

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What Does Unicorn Mean?

In IT, a unicorn refers to a project or firm with a unique potential. This broad term can be used to refer to a company in the tech field that has experienced impressive gains or to a project that is, in some ways, groundbreaking or unique.

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Techopedia Explains Unicorn

The term unicorn is most commonly used to describe a company, for example, a Silicon Valley startup, that started out small but has since increased its market capitalization to, say, $1 billion or more. Now, the tech industry has started using the term “super-unicorn” to describe a firm that stands out from the competition even more. For example, the social media giant Facebook, which has a market capitalization of more than $100 billion, is considered as a “super-unicorn among unicorns”; it started from a dorm room and, years later, is now a dominant technology firm.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.