Founders who started two or more unicorns
Dealroom's records hold 4,177 companies that reached a $1B valuation or a $1B exit. 282 of their founders started two or more of them, and 41 started three or more. Noubar Afeyan has started nine and Elon Musk seven.
- A unicorn here is any company Dealroom records as having reached a $1B valuation or been sold or listed for $1B or more, at any time. A company keeps the label after a later down round or failure.
- Of about 11,100 people recorded as founders of these companies, 282 founded at least one other.
- Biotech company builders take many of the top places. Noubar Afeyan and Geoffrey von Maltzahn start companies at Flagship Pioneering. Alexis Borisy, Richard Klausner and Jennifer Doudna co-founded several drug and gene-editing companies each.
- The list below shows the founders of three or more. Open it to see all 282, or search by founder or company.
Founders of three or more unicorns
Source: Dealroom.co
241 of the 282 started exactly two.
Founders by the number of unicorns they started
Source: Dealroom.co
Biotech is 28% of the unicorns started by serial founders and 14% of all unicorns. Flagship Pioneering and Third Rock Ventures create drug companies in-house, and their partners are listed as co-founders of each one.
Unicorns started by serial founders, by sector
Source: Dealroom.co
A decacorn here is a company worth $10B or more today: its market value if listed, its last funding round if private, or the price paid if it was bought. 13 founders started two or more.
Founders of two or more decacorns
Source: Dealroom.co
What this means
Starting a second unicorn is rare: about one founder of a unicorn in forty has done it. Biotech has twice its share among them, partly because venture studios such as Flagship Pioneering list their partners as co-founders of each company they start. 13 founders have started two or more companies worth $10B or more today.
Read more: Martin Varsavsky's companies and exits, from Viatel to Gameto.