In our recently released Asia Tech Investment Report, we highlighted that China’s largest internet giants — Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com (BATJ) — are investors and distribution platforms for many of China’s current unicorns. In total, BATJ has invested in 46% of China’s private companies currently valued at $1B or more, which include ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing, food delivery service Ele.me, and group deal platform Meituan-Dianping.
It’s a different picture when it comes to the largest US tech giants and their respective investments in private billion-dollar companies.
Using CB Insights data, we mapped out the unicorn portfolios of the five largest US tech companies — Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Apple (FAMGA). Collectively, the five make up more than $3 trillion in aggregate market cap.
Of the five, Google and its two investment vehicles clearly stand out with 25 disclosed investments in private companies currently valued at $1B+ (12.5% of the global total). Most recently, Google’s growth-focused investment arm, CapitalG, invested in Outcome Health, a Chicago-based patient education platform for doctor’s offices. Interestingly, Google is now an equity investor in a number of digital health unicorns including Oscar Health, 23andMe, Flatiron Health, and Clover Health.
Microsoft ranks second, with five portfolio unicorns including India e-commerce giant Flipkart as well as US enterprise tech companies CloudFlare and InsideSales. Apple has not invested in any US unicorns but is a backer of Softbank’s Vision Fund, and made a direct investment in Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing as the graphic below highlights.
Facebook’s now defunct fbFund made an investment in Lyft in 2008, though Facebook did not take equity in the company. Amazon also does not have any currently private unicorn investments, but was a previous backer of cloud communications platform Twilio.
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