Unitard Club

Unitard Club

Press Kit

Data, charts and briefing sheets, free to use under CC BY 4.0 with credit to Unitard Club. Data as of 23 Oct 2026.

💸≈$1.47T
peak value erased
🦄444
former unicorns
💀29%
dead or bankrupt

Downloads

  • Full dataset
    CSV · one row per company · 444 rows
  • Summary sheet
    PDF · one page · the headline numbers
  • Methodology sheet
    PDF · one page · how companies are counted
What each CSV column means
slug
Stable identifier; also the company page path (unitard.io/companies/<slug>).
name
Company name.
country
Headquarters country.
region
Headquarters region (North America, Europe, Asia, …).
sector
Short sector description, free text.
founded
Founding date or year (YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD), where known.
peakValuationUSD
Highest reported valuation in US dollars: a private round's post-money value, or peak market cap for companies that peaked after listing.
peakYear
Year of that peak.
category
Outcome: dead_bankrupt, public_sub_1b, acquired_below_1b or private_markdown. One per company, from its latest reported event.
currentStatus
One-line description of where the company stands now.
becameUnicorn
When it first reached a $1B+ valuation, as precise as reported (year or month).
lostUnicorn
When a reported event first put it below $1B. A leading ~ marks an approximate date.
pctChange
Decline from peak as displayed on the site (text, e.g. "~-98%"). Blank where no current value is reported.
dropPct
The same decline as a number (98 = down 98%). Blank where no current value is reported.
valueDestroyedUSD
Peak valuation minus the latest reported value, in US dollars. 0 where no current value is reported, so index totals are a floor.
capitalRaisedUSD
Total capital raised over the company's life, in US dollars; filled mainly for dead / bankrupt companies. May include venture debt or SPAC proceeds where that's how the total was reported.
raisedSource
Where the capital-raised figure comes from.
mechanism
How it fell: bankruptcy, down round, fire-sale acquisition, market collapse, and so on (free text).
leadInvestors*
Investors recorded as leading at least one round, semicolon-separated. Historical participation, not current ownership or losses.
disclosedInvestorsCount*
Number of distinct disclosed investors across the company's rounds.
crunchbaseUrl*
Crunchbase profile the investor fields were matched to.
sourceNote
Main sources for the row's figures.
unitardUrl
Company page on unitard.io, with full sources and timeline.

Dollar figures are nominal US dollars. *Compiled from Crunchbase records and not covered by the CC BY 4.0 licence. Full definitions are on the methodology page.

Key findings

Copying a finding includes the credit line.

  • About $1.47T of peak valuation has been erased across 444 startups once valued at $1 billion or more, against a combined peak of $1.63T.

  • 129 of the 444 former unicorns (29%) have shut down or gone bankrupt; the rest were sold, trade publicly, or are still private below $1 billion.

  • 55% of the former unicorns (246) hit their peak valuation in 2021.

  • 70% (309) fell below $1 billion between 2022 and 2024, including 158 in 2022 alone.

  • In EVs, mobility, climate and space, 48% of former unicorns are dead or bankrupt (44 of 92), against 12% in enterprise software, AI and cybersecurity (5 of 43).

  • 138 bankrupt or shut-down unicorns with funding records raised $143.1B in total: $282K for every day between founding and failure (median $152K a day).

Charts

1200 × 675, as PNG or SVG.

Where the Unicorns Went: 29% Ended Dead or Bankrupt. Breakdown of all 444 former unicorns across their four terminal paths: Dead / Bankrupt (129, −100% median), Public < $1B (138, −93% median), Acquired < $1B (76, −90% median), and Private Markdown (101, −81% median).
Where they ended upPNGSVG
The Post-ZIRP Deflation: 55% Peaked in 2021, The Fall Hit in 2022. Year of peak valuation (246 companies in 2021) compared against the year companies fell below the $1B threshold (158 in 2022; 309 across 2022–2024).
When they peaked and fellPNGSVG
Raised per Day: Failed Startups Raised $282K for Every Day Alive. Raised per day across 138 bankrupt or shut-down unicorns with funding records, from founding to bankruptcy or shutdown ($143.1B raised; $282K/day aggregate; $152K/day median; Northvolt $4.58M/day, WeWork $4.50M/day), alongside the top 9 historical peaks.
Raised per day, and the biggest peaksPNGSVG
The Markdown Staircase: How Mutual Funds Deflate Unicorns. Single-fund quarterly SEC Form NPORT-P Level-3 per-share marks indexed to each track's peak: Impossible Foods (−91%, The Private Shares Fund), Outreach (−89%, SMALLCAP World Fund Inc), DataRobot (−83%, BlackRock Science & Technology Trust), Patreon (−72%, BlackRock Science & Technology Trust).
How mutual funds marked them downPNGSVG

Latest

The most recent companies to fall below $1B.

CompanyFellOutcome
Character.AIOct 2026Dead / Bankrupt
sliceSep 2026Markdown
DealShareAug 2026Markdown
80 Acres FarmsAug 2026Dead / Bankrupt
Salad and GoAug 2026Dead / Bankrupt
EinrideJul 2026Public < $1B
76 companies added to the index in the last 30 days

Includes older cases newly documented, not only companies that fell this month. Largest peak first.

Dapper Labs, ANI Technologies (Ola), Royole Corporation, Amyris, Danimer Scientific, Houzz, Nayuki, Global Fashion Group, GoStudent, Carbon Health, Exscientia, CloudMinds, Headspace, Flink, MasterClass, SomaLogic, Character.AI, Carbon, ABL Space Systems, Keep, Gogoro, Allego, Trax, VNG, Einride, BenevolentAI, Dremio, Solugen, Unqork, Kry, FirstP2P (网信理财), DispatchHealth, Gousto, PAX Labs, Li-Cycle, Instabee, Afiniti, Nexii Building Solutions, slice, Gett, OpenWeb, Dock, BlackSky Technology, Proteus Digital Health, Zongmu Technology, Clarify Health, Science 37, Yotpo, JOLED, LanzaTech, Signifyd, Ve Interactive, GoGoX, Honor Technology, Kaltura, Spiber, Tritium DCFC, Razor Group, Multichain, Inspirato, Deezer, Vicarious Surgical, Flexe, Farcaster, Tarana Wireless, Ample, Grover, OrCam Technologies, MindMaze, Lookout, Lessen, Udacity, Pharmapacks (Packable), Katapult Holdings, Tink Labs, Aiwujiwu.

Contact and citation

Questions and corrections

Email hello@unitard.io for sources, custom cuts of the data, or to flag an error.

Common Parlance, Inc., 174 W 4th St, Unit #440, New York, NY 10014.

Unitard Club is an editorial project published by Common Parlance, Inc. The company and its principals hold no short positions in any listed security and sell no data or advisory services.

How to cite

Credit charts and figures to Unitard Club (unitard.io).

Unitard Club (unitard.io) tracks 444 venture-backed startups once valued at $1 billion or more that have since fallen below it, through bankruptcy, a sale under $1 billion, a public market decline or a fund markdown.

For fact-checking

Every company page lists its sources. Some starting points:

Breakdown by sector and region
SectorCompaniesDeadValue erased
EVs, Mobility, Climate & Space9244$318.1B
E-Commerce, Retail & Consumer7711$313.1B
Fintech, Crypto & Insurtech5514$197.6B
Healthcare, Biotech & Wellness5617$172.0B
Food, Grocery Delivery & Agritech3211$98.5B
Real Estate, Proptech & Hospitality207$90.6B
Edtech & Learning243$84.9B
Media, Gaming & Social2610$75.4B
Enterprise SaaS, AI & Cybersecurity435$75.3B
Hardware, Robotics & Supply Chain197$42.3B
RegionCompaniesDeadValue erased
North America28776$972.8B
Asia8334$278.9B
Europe5317$175.4B
Middle East141$28.3B
LatAm, Africa & Oceania71$12.4B
Court dockets and SEC filings for key cases
Full source lists for major collapses

WeWork (9), FTX (11), Nikola (19), LeEco / LeTV (18), Theranos (8), Outcome Health (12), Greensill Capital (9), Builder.ai (17), eFishery (16), IRL (11).

Investor exposure is on the investors page. New companies are announced in the RSS and JSON feeds. Logo: PNG.

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