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This week, Forbes released its eighth-annual Next Billion-Dollar Startups list, a collection of the country’s 25 venture-backed startups most likely to become unicorns. I’m proud to say my colleagues (and the TrueBridge Capital team that assists with the list) have a fantastic track record here: Of the 175 companies to make this list over the years, 116 have become unicorns; another 22 were acquired, and 9 went public before hitting the mark. Only 5 imploded or shut down.
As list editor Amy Feldman notes here, it’s a nerve-wracking time to find startups that seem poised to thrive. Markets are down, investors skittish, and several promising companies that had looked like strong contenders for the list early this year (like Calibrate and Gather) have since laid off portions of their workforce. But the Forbes team is confident in the 25 companies on this year’s list because of the far-higher revenue they’ve reported: Average estimated 2021 revenue is $24 million, double that of last year’s $12 million average.
Strong revenue generation is one of the reasons that one of last year’s listees, Incredible Health, has already made good on its “Next Billion-Dollar Startup” title: This week, the company announced that it raised an $80 million Series B round of funding, which values the nursing staffing startup at $1.65 billion and vaults its cofounder and CEO, Dr. Iman Abuzeid, into rarified air: She is one of just a small handful of Black women who have founded and are leading a unicorn company.
Abuzeid—whom you can read more about below—acknowledged to me that while she had never raised money for a growth-stage company before, she could tell the market was jittery. And she could also see that her company’s efficient management of cash coming in helped conversations with investors. “There was a lot more diligence on our numbers,” she admitted. “But at the end of the day, if you’ve got a strong company, you can raise in any environment.”
Cheers!
Maggie
Featured Forbes Profile: Dr. Iman Abuzeid Leads Incredible Health To Unicorn Status With $80 Million Series B
Dr. Iman Abuzeid, cofounder and CEO of Incredible Health
Incredible HealthDr. Iman Abuzeid cofounded nurse-hiring startup Incredible Health in 2017 as a way to help healthcare workers find permanent (and better-paying) positions. Five years later, she has guided her company to a $1.65 billion valuation, becoming one of the few Black female founders at the helm of a unicorn company. “I hope that I’m a proof point to everyone who says that it can’t be done,” Abuzeid says.
ICYMI: News Of The Week
Sarah Guo, a former general partner at Greylock Partners, is branching out and starting her own firm.
Martina Albertazzi/BloombergSarah Guo, venture capitalist and Forbes 30 Under 30 alumna, had a standout career at Greylock until earlier this summer, when she left to start her own fund focused on early-stage investing. She spoke to Forbes about why, despite the broader macroeconomic uncertainty of this current moment, it’s actually the best time to start something new.
When Tessa Wijaya decided to leave her investment banking job in 2016 to become the COO and cofounder of Xendit, an Indonesian electronic payments startup, it wasn’t because the money was better—in fact, she took an 80% pay cut. But six years later, she has helped Xendit raise $538 million in funding and reach a valuation of more than $1 billion.
In other funding news, brother-sister duo Hana and Nile Dreiling raised $9 million for their Hawaii-based taro donut shop Holey Grail from investors including renowned skateboarder Tony Hawk and chef Christopher Kostow. They want to use the funds to open more brick-and-mortar locations.
TSA agents still force some parents to dump breast milk and ditch cold packs before they can board planes. Now, thanks to the efforts of Emily Calandrelli, host of Netflix’s Emily’s Wonder Lab, a new bill has been introduced to update existing legislation and ensure that breast milk, formula and accessories are allowed on planes and treated hygienically.
On Monday, a Florida appeals court sided with a lower judge’s ruling that a 16-year-old minor in the state cannot get an abortion based on a law requiring parental consent for minors. The ruling forces the teen—who the lower court said had not established that she is “sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy”—to carry her pregnancy to term.
The Checklist
#1: Clean up your calendar. Or, as HP North America managing director Stephanie Dismore puts it: “No objective, no attendance.” If a proposed meeting doesn’t have a clear goal, Dismore does not attend. She spoke to Forbes about this and other ways to avoid meeting overload.
#2: Stop landing jobs you hate. If you’ve ever landed in a job that you quickly realized you hated—or if you’ve ever been in a cycle of this happening consistently—here are five strategies to employ in finding more fulfilling ways to be, well, employed.
#3: Boost your emergency fund. This is perennially good advice and definitely something you should bump to the top of your to-do list as recession fears ripple through the markets.
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