What Makes an EdTech Unicorn? Factors Affecting Valuation of Startups in Socially Important Industries

This study examines the factors influencing the valuation of unicorn companies in socially significant industries in comparison to startups. The main conclusion of this work is the presence of a significant effect of each of the categories of factors studied, such as those related to the company itself, as well as those related to the investor, founder and group of founders and the media presence of the company, including the activity of the presence on the Internet. Startups in socially significant industries have unique characteristics that affect their valuation. Despite this, the results of the study demonstrate that theories that apply to the full range of startups from different industries are also applicable to socially significant startups. The study is based on data on 3,167 companies obtained from databases: CrunchBase, Twitter, CBInsights and Yahoo Finance. This paper highlights the influence of factors on the valuation of a company and the likelihood of becoming a unicorn company and is applicable before a company goes public for late financing funds to optimize company valuation methods.