>>> Europe : Brokers Upgrades & Downgrades - 14th of February 2025

>>> Up
* Airbnb Raised to Outperform at Baird; PT $175
* Airbnb Raised to Neutral at Goldman; PT $153
* Airbnb PT Raised to $190 from $165 at Canaccord
* Givaudan Raised to Buy at Berenberg; PT 4,700 Swiss francs
* Givaudan ADRs Raised to Buy at Berenberg; PT $104.40
* Harbour Energy Raised to Buy at Peel Hunt; PT 310 pence
* Heineken Raised to Outperform at Oddo BHF; PT 93 euros
* Hongkong Land Raised to Buy at Citi; PT $4.80
* John Mattson Raised to Buy at Kepler Cheuvreux
* Kitron Raised to Buy at Norne Securities; PT 43 kroner
* Lectra Raised to Buy at Kepler Cheuvreux
* Lotus Bakeries Raised to Buy at ING; PT 12,000 euros
* Merlin Properties Raised to Neutral at Citi; PT 11.90 euros
* Metrovacesa Raised to Buy at JB Capital Markets; PT 11.90 euros
* Norwegian Air Raised to Buy at Nordea; PT 14 kroner
* Relais Group Raised to Buy at Inderes; PT 16.50 euros
* Roku Raised to Buy at Pivotal; PT $125
* Roku Raised to Overweight at Wells Fargo; PT $129
* Saab Raised to Buy at Citi; PT 260 kronor
* Siili Solutions Raised to Buy at Inderes; PT 7.50 euros
* Var Energi Raised to Buy at Goldman; PT 41 kroner
* Vetropack Raised to Buy at Berenberg; PT 40 Swiss francs

>>> Down
* AMD Cut to Outperform at Daiwa; PT $130
* ArcelorMittal Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
* Atria Cut to Accumulate at Inderes; PT 13 euros
* Boreo Cut to Reduce at Inderes; PT 12.50 euros
* Cargotec Cut to Sell at Inderes; PT 42 euros
* Cinis Fertilizer Cut to Hold at ABG; PT 4 kronor
* Deutsche Boerse Cut to Neutral at Oddo BHF; PT 253 euros
* Embracer Cut to Hold at ABG; PT 140 kronor
* Fondia Cut to Accumulate at Inderes; PT 5.60 euros
* Fortnox Cut to Hold at ABG; PT 75 kronor
* INVISIO AB Cut to Sell at Pareto Securities; PT 295 kronor
* Mandatum Cut to Reduce at Inderes; PT 4.80 euros
* Mandatum Cut to Hold at Nordea
* Mortgage Advice Bureau Cut to Hold at Deutsche Bank
* Optomed Cut to Accumulate at Inderes; PT 5.20 euros
* Optomed Cut to Reduce at Kepler Cheuvreux
* Stille Cut to Hold at Pareto Securities; PT 285 kronor
* Valmet Cut to Sell at SEB Equities; PT 26 euros

>>> Initiation
* Asmodee Rated New Buy at ABG; PT 135 kronor
* Bunzl Rated New Buy at Redburn; PT 3,950 pence
* Costain Rated New Buy at Berenberg; PT 140 pence
* JDE Peet's Rated New Buy at KBC Securities; PT 24 euros
* Kontron Rated New Outperform at Oddo BHF; PT 25 euros

>>> Call
* Goldman Raises Stoxx 600 Price Targets on Ceasefire Potential

FT Lex : Applovin’s super-rally will be bittersweet for KKR

Applovin’s super-rally will be bittersweet for KKR
Some say the adtech start-up should be added as a member to an augmented Magnificent Eight

Private equity groups do not like leaving money on the table, even if they still come away with pockets stuffed. Digital ad phenomenon Applovin is, for one particular buyout firm, the bonanza that got away.

Until a year ago Applovin was a largely obscure Silicon Valley start-up trying to morph from a mobile games developer into an adtech mainstay. Mission accomplished. Its quarterly results released on Wednesday showed revenue in its advertising segment, which helps clients buy and sell ads in smartphone apps, jumped 75 per cent for the year. Its shares surged almost 30 per cent.

Since the start of 2023, Applovin’s share price has rocketed from $10, well below its initial public offering price of $80, to more than $450. Its market capitalisation of $150bn is remarkable given analysts project annual revenue of just $7bn in 2027. Some boosters believe the company should be added as a member to an augmented Magnificent Eight.

KKR, the private equity titan, helped birth this monster. It invested $400mn of so-called minority growth equity in 2018 at a $2bn valuation. At the time the company went public in 2021, KKR’s roughly one-third stake in the company was worth $9bn. Yet because of the fact the buyout group offloaded its shares below the IPO valuation and before the recent super-rally, its cash haul was about $8bn.


Think what might have been. A crude calculation shows that if KKR had held on since the IPO, all things being equal, its piece of Applovin would now be worth more than $50bn, making it a private equity windfall for the ages.

Those close to the investment group point out all things are not equal. Applovin repurchased and retired some of the shares KKR sold since the IPO, so if the buyout group had held all its shares, then today’s stock price would be proportionately lower. The adtech start-up has operating margins above 60 per cent and, for its part, it was smart to use cash flow to buy back those shares cheaply in the years before the run-up.

Still, it is fair to say KKR has missed at least tens of billions in profit. True, it is not like it could have known Applovin would attain a share price that defies old-school valuation methods. Private equity firms face the imperative of locking in gains and sending cash winnings back to investors within a few years of deployment.

So-called growth investing became a habit for KKR and peers such as Blackstone in the 2010s, partly because there were few undervalued companies they could target for traditional leveraged buyouts. The group undoubtedly believes its expertise was additive. KKR’s total profit of more than $7bn suggests that with Applovin it got lucky too. It’s just a shame that, had it held on, it could have been even more so.

FT : The fiesta’s over for Mexico’s agave farmers

The fiesta’s over for Mexico’s agave farmers
The tequila boom was a great thing for agave growers, until it wasn’t

As a boy, Antonio visited his father’s dairy farm several times a week and helped feed the cows and sow corn. His family, mostly farmers from small towns in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, were surprised but supportive when he trained to become a doctor.

But in 2018, the tequila boom in the US presented Antonio, who requested we not use his real name, with an opportunity to get back into the fields and connect with his father. With the price of agave, the key ingredient in tequila, reaching record heights, everyone with a patch of land was rushing to plant the crop, or to sell their land to others keen to do so. As it peaked at some 30 pesos ($1.45) per kilogramme, doctors, dentists, and many others piled into the business. The number of registered agave growers rocketed from 3,180 in 2014 to 41,000 in 2023. For several years, the region was abuzz with a sense of possibility, even among those without land to grow on. Opportunistic investment companies set up crypto-esque trading websites encouraging Tapatíos, people local to the area, to place bets that the price of agave would keep rising.

Antonio, 44, and his partners spent two million pesos ($97,300) over the following years renting land, buying agave plants and paying for their maintenance. He kept up his medical practice but would go as often as he could to his plantations, which he used as both an investment and an escape. If he had chosen another crop — corn, say — he’d currently be expecting his seventh harvest. But agave is a plant designed to survive in desert environments. It guards its energy carefully and takes up to seven years to reach maturity. 

A couple of years after he planted his crops, Antonio secured a contract with a tequila producer promising to buy his plants. The deal gave him the confidence to plant more, but did not include any kind of price protection. In 2022, when his first crops were still a couple of years from maturity, he started to hear about falling prices. Within two years the spot price had plummeted to between 1 and 3 pesos per kg. “We started to plant all excited, making the investment when things were good without really knowing that it’s all cyclical,” he says.

Stories like Antonio’s are now crystallised into tequila industry lore: the hapless middle-class professionals who helped fuel the agave oversupply crisis that is now rocking Jalisco. “There are a lot of people that invested in agave with borrowed money, some even sold their houses,” he says. He has slashed the maintenance on his crops, risking disease, and hopes to salvage something to pay off his debts. “A lot of the responsibility is with the tequila industry. If there hadn’t been that contract, I wouldn’t have planted as much as I did.”

The main road from Guadalajara, Mexico’s second city, to the town of Tequila is lined with agave. Row upon row of the plant stretches in a sea of blue-grey, up into the foothills of Jalisco’s mountains. On the roadside, the jagged crop frequently escapes its fencing and bursts from the verges, growing in the dust kicked up by passing cars. 

The strain of agave that grows here, Agave tequilana, or blue agave, is the primary ingredient in tequila. Once a party spirit consumed by the shot in nightclubs and in margarita mixes, tequila is positioned today as a premium sipping liquor. Multinational drinks giants such as Diageo, Bacardi, Suntory and Pernod Ricard have invested billions acquiring tequila brands, building ever-larger distilleries and mechanising production processes in a bid to secure a foothold in alcohol’s next big thing. Diageo’s chief executive vowed in 2023 to take tequila global with brands like the wildly popular, George Clooney-founded Casamigos — bought out by Diageo for $1bn in 2017 — and legacy label Don Julio.

Behind tequila’s celebrity-fuelled hype is an agricultural sector strained to breaking point. Although tequila remains the world’s fastest-growing spirit, the peak growth is over, and drinkers have been cutting back on boozing. That was already particularly true in the US, tequila’s largest export market, before President Donald Trump proposed launching a trade war. While large producers with long-held relationships with the tequila houses are able to ride out the cycle, farmers without solid contracts are now desperately trying to offload their agave in a saturated market. 

Agaveros, agave growers, from the Jalisco highlands have been driving down into the towns, begging distilleries to buy their piñas — the heart of the plant, which is cooked and macerated to make the juice that becomes tequila. “They were lining up, knocking at the gates,” says Guillermo Erickson Sauza, a fifth-generation producer from the historic Sauza tequila family.

Sauza’s distillery, Fortaleza, which has a cult following among American tequila connoisseurs, is in the heart of the town from which the spirit gets its name. Encircled by hills, Tequila is a tangle of low, brightly painted buildings, strung with flags and housing makeshift tourist spots. Behind high gates and colonial arches are around 20 tequila distilleries, some more than 200 years old, past which the odd pedibus carrying drunk holidaymakers jolts along. 

Sauza, who cuts a distinctive figure in a rancher’s hat and biker jacket, says he was stopped in the street last year by farmers who begged him to take a truck of piñas from them each month. “That’s what it’s come down to,” he says. “They lose 10 years of their life [to the crop].”

Small farmers are already beginning to abandon the crop, burning semi-matured plants and replanting with corn. Fears are growing among the tequileros, tequila makers, that disease will spread through the abandoned fields. 

This price boom and bust is not a first for the industry. Shortages in agave force the price up, which in turn incentivises more planting, resulting in an inevitable oversupply. Sauza recalls a similar situation 15 years ago. Experts say that this time, though, the scale of the boom is unprecedented. And the crisis is only set to worsen as agave planted during the boom comes to maturity. 

Last month, a group of agaveros gathered to protest along the road from Guadalajara into Tequila town, temporarily blocking agave trucks. Around Jalisco, farmers have started protesting against the Tequila Regulatory Council (CRT), a regulatory body that they blame for the collapse of the price of agave.

FT : Cocoa stockpiles plunge to record low

Cocoa stockpiles plunge to record low
Chocolate makers grab available reserves to counter acute global shortage

Stocks of cocoa in London and New York have plunged to all-time lows in the latest sign of a shortage that has forced chocolate makers desperate to meet Valentine’s Day demand to seek alternative ingredients.

Traders and chocolate manufacturers have withdrawn most of the lower-quality surpluses at the world’s largest commodity exchanges as the market struggles to cope with years of poor global harvests.

The scarcity of chocolate has curbed the profit margins of chocolate makers and presented consumers with smaller bars, new formulations that scrimp on the cocoa. In the US, retail chocolate prices are up to a fifth higher this Valentine’s Day than last year, according to Wells Fargo.

Inventories at Intercontinental Exchange’s London marketplace have dropped from more than 100,000 tonnes of usable cocoa a year ago to about 21,000 in recent months, company data shows.

“That is absolutely tiny, the tiniest we’ve ever seen,” said Jonathan Parkman, co-head of agriculture at commodity broker Marex. “There is no slack in the system, that’s what it tells you: We’re very, very tight.”

Independent licensed warehouses in New York are also looking worryingly empty, added Parkman. Total stocks are around 90,000 tons. “That is incredibly low for this time in the season,” he said.

The dramatic drawdown has upped the pressure on the cocoa industry, already stretched by bad weather and disease that have battered crops in the world’s main producing countries Ivory Coast and Ghana.

Prices of cocoa have tripled since the start of 2023, hitting their highest levels in 50 years in London, after three consecutive years of harvest deficits.

Warehouses serve an unobtrusive but crucial role in the commodities market. Buyers and sellers can agree to a deal for a specific amount of cocoa at a pre-determined price on a future date. The warehouses hold the physical goods that are supplied so the deal terms are met.


But owners also typically store their surpluses in the exchange warehouses, using them not for supply but to fulfil futures contracts that hedge against sudden adverse price moves.

Consequently they are often filled with beans from Cameroon or Nigeria, which are less favoured by chocolate makers than those from Ivory Coast or Ghana.

“You would expect cocoa that’s delivered against the futures market to be the cocoa that is least required within the cocoa supply chain . . . generally people deliver to the market what they don’t need themselves,” said Parkman.

However scarcity is so high that even these stocks are being depleted. Last month Hershey requested permission from the US derivatives regulator to buy up to 90,000 tonnes of cocoa through the New York exchange — nine times more than the permitted limit.

“People have been letting their futures expire so that they would get physical cocoa. And I don’t think there’s any incentive for traders to supply cocoa to those warehouses right now,” said an executive at a large chocolate maker who declined to be identified.

The industry’s readiness to snap up even lower-grade supplies has already forced some to re-evaluate the make-up of the chocolate itself.

Standard chocolates, such as those eaten in Western Europe and North America, are made from cocoa butter and cocoa liquor. Compound chocolate, however, is made from cocoa powder mixed with a substitute fat. 

Fuji Oil, a large supplier to the industry, reported this month a drop in sales of industrial chocolate, the raw material used in consumer products, and a rise in revenue of substitutes, like those that derive from other plant-based oils and fats. The Japanese company also reported that their sales of compound chocolate had increased significantly.

“What chocolate makers are talking about is the new products that they’re bringing out, which will have less and less cocoa in them, and more of the other things that are less expensive than cocoa fat,” said Parkman.


Some executives question if the shortage — and the risk of not being able to fulfil a contract — would mean buyers and sellers bypass the exchange.

Michele Buck, chief executive of Hershey, admitted earlier this month that “we are seeing very low commercial participation on the exchange”.

She added that the US company had been looking at alternatives to its supply chain, including buying directly from growers.

Global prices have dropped by nearly a fifth from their December peak. Growers and sellers point to early data indications that suggest a reduced crop deficit or a potential global small surplus.

But Nicko Debenham, former head of sustainability at Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest chocolate maker, warned that would-be buyers had little alternative if exchange warehouse inventory had been depleted.

“The only way to get cocoa is to pay up on a physical differential, irrespective of what the futures price is,” he said, referring to the extra amount buyers must pay to secure an immediate supply.

That could amount to $1,500 a tonne on top of the prevailing futures price for in-demand Ivory Coast cocoa, he said.

Senior executives at chocolate companies say they are looking at all ways to cope with the high cocoa price, from more cost savings to reassessing their supply chain.

For consumers, Parkman said this means “they’re gonna have less cocoa in their chocolate, and they’re going to be paying more for it for a considerable length of time”.

FT : UK refuses to release details of Peter Thiel’s meeting with former minister

UK refuses to release details of Peter Thiel’s meeting with former minister
Government argues disclosure could ‘prejudice diplomatic relations’

The UK government has refused to disclose details of a meeting between American billionaire Peter Thiel and a former minister on the grounds that doing so could harm “diplomatic relations” between Britain and the US.

Thiel, a Republican donor and prominent backer of US vice-president JD Vance, met the then-UK investment minister Lord Dominic Johnson in January 2024 to discuss the US and UK “investment environment”.

The UK’s Department for Business and Trade told the Financial Times it would not release full meeting notes because they include information on “Peter Thiel’s views on and approach to a meeting about an important policy issue”.

“Disclosure of the withheld information could prejudice diplomatic relations as the release would undermine the trust and confidence that foreign government[s] place on the UK,” the department said this week in response to a Freedom of Information request.

It added that disclosure “could potentially prejudice UK relations with US”.

The government released heavily redacted meeting notes and an agenda in response to the FT’s disclosure request. The redactions were made based on exemptions to transparency laws that are ordinarily invoked in relation to communications between UK public authorities and other states, international organisations or “organs of other states”. 

The government’s stance will raise questions about the nature of Thiel’s role in dealings with the UK government.

German-born Thiel, chair of data analytics software company Palantir, has developed a formidable network in US government and the Republican party and was a key donor to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Thiel declined to donate to his re-election campaign, however.

A conservative libertarian, Thiel for a time employed Vance in his Silicon Valley venture capital firm and was instrumental in his rise to the White House.

Companies Thiel has co-founded or backed, such as Palantir and Anduril — a defence technology company — have been given significant government contracts on both sides of the Atlantic in areas such as health and defence.

Palantir has won more than $2.7bn in US contracts since 2009, including more than $1.3bn in Pentagon contracts, according to federal records, and has capitalised on a revolving door of executives who have moved between the company and high-level positions in Washington and Westminster.

In the UK, Palantir won contracts worth up to half a billion pounds, including a contract with the National Health Service to manage patient data. 

Unredacted portions of the documents relating to the meeting show that Johnson intended to address Thiel’s concerns about the lack of access of Palantir’s defence arm to the European marketplace and pitch the UK as a “world-leading destination and incubator for venture philanthropy”. 

Palantir was awarded a £75mn contract with the Ministry of Defence in December 2022. 

Thiel expressed pessimism about the UK economy, citing high taxes, low growth and “the fact that growth is driven by real estate rather than innovation like tech”, according to one of the documents.

The meeting served to “develop a relationship” with Thiel, who was referred to as the founder of Thiel Capital, his investment firm, according to briefing notes prepared for Johnson that were titled “Bilateral with Peter Thiel”.

In justifying the withheld portions, the business department said the exchanges between Thiel and Johnson happened “in the immediate period” before the incoming presidential administration at a “very sensitive time” for US politics and for UK-US relations.

At the time of the meeting, the US election was eight months away.

DBT said it had “complied with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act and information has been withheld in accordance with the Act”.

A spokesman for Thiel did not respond to an FT request about whether Thiel at any time had a mandate to act as a representative of the interests of the US government, electoral candidates or a political party.

FT : Taiwan pledges to boost US investment after Donald Trump’s tariff threat

Taiwan pledges to boost US investment after Donald Trump’s tariff threat
US president has accused Taipei of ‘stealing’ American semiconductor industry

Taiwan’s president has pledged to boost procurement and investment in the US as he rushes to respond to Donald Trump’s global tariff threats and pressure on Taiwan’s semiconductor industry.

“We will increase investment in the US and purchases from it to balance bilateral trade,” Lai Ching-te told reporters on Friday, just hours after the US president announced plans to impose “reciprocal tariffs” on countries with which the US runs large trade deficits.

The US trade deficit with Taiwan, its seventh-largest trading partner, widened by $26.1bn to $73.9bn last year, driven by booming demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips. Most are made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chipmaker.

But Lai asserted Taiwan’s leading role in global chip manufacturing and pushed back against Trump’s demands that semiconductor business — which the US president has accused Taiwan of “stealing” — be returned to America.

“I want to emphasise that as the world’s most potent semiconductor [manufacturing] power, Taiwan is capable and willing to respond to new situations,” said Lai.

He vowed to “ensure Taiwan’s indispensability in the global supply chain” and proposed a “global semiconductor democratic supply chain initiative” in order to help the US build more resilient supply chains — a co-operative vision distinct from Trump’s protectionist push to concentrate the industry at home.

Following pressure from the first Trump and Biden administrations as well as its US customers, TSMC has committed to investing $65bn in three fabrication plants in Arizona, the first of which is already in mass production. Although the plants will still account for less than a fifth of TSMC’s total capacity when completed, they are the company’s largest overseas investment.

But Trump has threatened to overturn subsidy deals granted under his predecessor, a move that could put more than $6bn of financial support for TSMC at risk. Trump also wants to rebuild chip manufacturing in the US at a much larger scale.

When announcing his latest tariff plans on Thursday, Trump repeated accusations that Taiwan “took our chip business away”.

“We want that business back in the United States,” he said, “and if they don’t bring it back, we’re not going to be very happy.”

Lai on Friday affirmed that Taipei was the US’s “most reliable trading partner” and invoked the countries’ shared democratic values.

But he said the Trump administration was pursuing “strategies and policies that are completely different from the past”, adding that this posed challenges for all other countries, including Taiwan.

>>> US After Hours Summary: ABNB +14.6%, PCOR +11.9%, ROKU +11.6%, DKNG +7%, YEL

After Hours Summary: ABNB +14.6%, PCOR +11.9%, ROKU +11.6%, DKNG +7%, YELP +3.1% higher on earnings; INFA -32.7%, TWLO -6%, PANW -5%, AMAT -4.6% lower on earnings

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: NUS +23.1%, ABNB +14.6%, PCOR +11.9%, ROKU +11.6%, DKNG +7%, FROG +6.6%, ELME +6.5%, GT +5.5%, HASI +3.8% (also announces exec appts), CAE +3.7%, FBRT +3.2%, YELP +3.1%, PDFS +2.8%, MSI +2.6%, LEG +2.5%, RSG +2.1%, TSLX +1.7%, UDMY +1.3%, WYNN +1.3%, DXCM +1.1%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: GME +8.4% (aiming to invest in bitcoin, according to CNBC), KAI +7.9% (to join S&P SmallCap 600), EAF +7.7% (CEO and CFO each bought 50K shares), FLUT +3.9% (in sympathy with strong DKNG earnings), CAE +3.7% (names new chair), WNC +2.8% (acquires TrailerHawk.ai), MUSA +1.8% (increases dividend), TRIP +1.4% (in sympathy with strong ABNB earnings), WFC +1.3% (confirms that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency terminated its 2018 consent order), KNX +1% (increases dividend), BKNG +1% (in sympathy with strong ABNB earnings), RSI +0.8% (in sympathy with strong DKNG earnings), ALLE +0.5% (to acquire Lemaar Australia), VRSN +0.3% (CFO to retire), EXPE +0.3% (in sympathy with strong ABNB earnings), ELAN +0.2% (receives promotional practices warning letter from FDA), QGEN +0.1% (opens new data center in Australia), NPO +0.1% (increases dividend), BIRK +0.1% (stock offering), AGI +0.1% (announces development plan for burnt timber and linkwood satellite deposits)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: INFA -32.7%, AENT -13.1%, EGAN -12.1%, ISSC -11.1%, CLW -10.7% (also announces 10% workforce reduction), DVA -8.6%, KN -7.2%, TWLO -6%, PANW -5%, HCC -4.8%, AMAT -4.6%, KNSL -4.6%, HL -3.8%, GDDY -3.1%, DLR -1.4%, AEE -1.3%, VNDA -1.3%, HTGC -1%, COIN -0.6%, BFAM -0.5%, AL -0.4%, BIO -0.4% (also offers to acquire Stilla Tech), PDM -0.4%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: IFRX -15.8% (stock offering), NPCE -10.3% ($65 mln stock offering), AEM -2.7% (provides exploration update), KMB -0.8% (files mixed shelf securities offering), CPRI -0.6% (names new Chief Brand and Product Officer), BMY -0.4% (Phase 3 RELATIVITY-098 trial did not meet primary endpoint), VALE -0.2% (in advanced talks to sell Brazil renewable assets, according to Reuters), KHC -0.2% (files mixed shelf securities offering), CMI -0.1% (files mixed shelf securities offering)

CrunchBase : Hundreds Of Unicorns Haven’t Raised New Funding Since 2021

Hundreds Of Unicorns Haven’t Raised New Funding Since 2021

We are witnessing an unprecedented pile-up of unicorn startups that have not raised any money since 2021.

Currently, an estimated 517 global unicorns — or private companies valued at $1 billion or more — raised their last known round more than three years ago, per Crunchbase data. Such companies are particularly abundant in certain sectors, including enterprise software, fitness, commerce, AI and analytics.

The accumulation comes amid a sluggish period for tech IPO filings and large acquisitions. So far this year, we haven’t seen any tech unicorns go public — even those in hot spaces that recently raised big rounds.

In addition, the amount of money that went into long-unfunded unicorns is substantial. Per Crunchbase data, the ones on our list collectively raised more than $260 billion, with $80 billion of that secured by U.S. unicorns.

Below, we take a closer look at the sectors where much of the money went, with a focus on U.S. unicorns.

SaaS
At least 45 American SaaS unicorns haven’t raised a round since 2021.

It’s not hugely surprising. SaaS overall has had a challenging couple of years, with a market correction, belt-tightening by corporate customers, slower growth rates, and pressure to incorporate AI technology.

The list of long-unfunded SaaS unicorns includes some prodigious fundraisers. The biggest was equity and fund management software platform Carta, with $1.16 billion in funding to date. The San Francisco company secured a $7.4 billion valuation three years ago, but was reportedly valued last year at a fraction of that.

Others include cybersecurity providers Tanium and Sysdig, which previously raised $775 million and $730 million in equity funding, respectively.

Below, we put together a list of 10 of the largest SaaS fundraisers that have not had a reported round since 2021.


Shopping
People haven’t stopped shopping, but unicorns tied to e-commerce and consumer brands have certainly been securing less funding.

Per Crunchbase data, there are at least 36 U.S. unicorns in e-commerce and shopping industry categories that haven’t raised a round since 2021. Collectively, they pulled in over $14 billion in equity investment. Given that many of these are consumer-facing brands, the list includes some familiar names.

Among the biggest fundraisers is Miami-based Reef Technology, a cloud kitchen startup that raised a $700 million round in late 2020, before the space fell out of favor. Another is Dutchie, a platform for running cannabis dispensaries, an area that has fared poorly for startup investors.

Below, we put together a list of seven of the largest commerce-related fundraisers that have not had a reported round since 2021.


Fitness and wellness
Fitness and wellness was a robust area for unicorn creation a few years ago. These days, the fitness space in particular is attracting far less investment, and many heavy fundraisers from a few years ago aren’t getting fresh rounds.

Per Crunchbase data, about a dozen U.S. unicorns tied to fitness and wellness have not raised a round since 2021. At the top of the list is weight loss platform Noom, which raised $540 million at a $3.7 billion valuation in 2021. Since then, the New York company has carried out multiple rounds of layoffs.

Smart exercise bike brand Zwift raised its last reported round — a $450 million Series C — in 2020. And in the wellness space there’s Cerebral, a mental healthcare platform that raised $462 million from SoftBank and others between 2020 and 2021.

Below, we put together a list of seven fitness and wellness-related unicorns that have not had a reported round since 2021.


AI and analytics
AI and analytics are still very hot spaces for venture funding, so it’s not where we looked first for examples of unicorns that haven’t raised for a few years. In reality, however, there are still a lot of companies in these categories that fit our criteria.

Per Crunchbase data, at least 56 U.S. unicorns in analytics or AI-related industries have not raised a round since 2021. Previously, this group had raised more than $18 billion.

It’s not necessarily an indication that these companies have fallen out of favor. While some are struggling, others appear to be still in growth mode. Many are likely still funding operations with capital raised a few years back.

Below, we put together a list of AI, data and analytics-related unicorns that last raised funding in 2021 or earlier.


To panic or not to panic
For investors, the growing buildup of long unfunded unicorns isn’t necessarily reason to panic. Many raised huge rounds during the market peak, providing cash to get through dry years. And some should still produce enviable returns. Just look at Reddit, the star performer among last year’s IPOs, which raised its last venture round in 2021.

On the other hand, there are reasons why panicking would make sense. Typically, startups that raise follow-on rounds do so within three years. For the most sought-after companies, it often takes just months. Once a company has gone four years without fresh capital, meanwhile, the odds of raising a new round are slim, an analysis of Series B fundraising showed.