[yorwba]

Using unicorns as a proxy for innovation is maybe not a great idea, because it's just looking at a few outliers of heavily concentrated capital. It doesn't tell you anything about the majority of companies that are not unicorns and will never be, but that might nonetheless be highly innovative and profitable.

For example, if you look at foreign direct investment, the Netherlands lead the pack in 2017 with $4.888 trillion invested by residents of other countries. [1] Yet apparently there's only one Dutch unicorn (team.blue). Evidently there's a lot of investment going to other companies instead of betting on a single unicorn.

[1] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...