In 2015, Instacart was already a successful U.S.-based Unicorn (a Unicorn is defined as a pre-exit startup with valuation in excess of $1 billion). At the time, Instacart had a valuation of $2 billion, and had already raised more than $250 million in funding. It also had no published patent filings, neither pending nor issued. Another member of the U.S.-based Unicorn cohort of 2015, GitHub, also had a valuation of $2 billion, and raised $350 million in funding. GitHub had no published U.S. patent filings either (pending or issued), nor did 26 additional U.S. Unicorns in 2015. As a matter of fact, as seen in Figure 1(a), a study conducted in 2015 by Foresight Valuation Group found that 30 percent of all U.S. Unicorns in 2015 had no published U.S. filings (pending or issued),1 and another 32 percent had less than 10 assets assigned to them. All in all, over 60 percent of U.S. Unicorns did not have a significant patent position (defined as 10 or less published U.S. filings, either pending or issued). And yet, these Unicorns, as of 2015 have raised, on average, a total of $495 million in funding with a median valuation of $1.3 billion, and many of them went on to have a successful exit, either by M&A or through an initial public offering (IPO). This “patent gap” has been getting even wider in a follow-up study of Unicorns conducted in 2022, where 41 percent of all U.S. Unicorns in 2022 had no published U.S. f ilings (pending or issued), and close to 70 percent of the U.S. Unicorns fell in the 10 and under asset portfolio category.

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Efrat Kasznik Les Nouvelles Article June 2024