 | This article needs to be updated.(March 2023) |
| Unicorn Hunters | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Reality |
| Judges | Steve Wozniak Lance Bass Moe Vela Silvina Moschini Alex Konanykhin Scott Livingston Rosa Rios |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 14 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Craig Plestis |
| Original release | |
| Release | May 10, 2021 |
Unicorn Hunters is a reality television series that debuted in 2021 on Amazon Prime. [1]
The series features a group of investors called the “Circle of Money” and groups of entrepreneurs that pitch their businesses to the group in search of investment funds. The viewing audience also has the ability to invest in the same companies as the investors on the show. [2] Season one consisted of six episodes. [3] The Washington Post has described the series as “the only show that can make you rich”. [4]
In the shows first season, the members of the Circle of Money included Steve Wozniak, [5] Lance Bass, [6] Moe Vela, Silvina Moschini, [7] Alex Konanykhin, [8] Scott Livingston, and Rosa Rios. [9]
The show was produced by Craig Plestis [9] and premiered on May 10, 2021 [10] on Amazon Prime. [11]
Unicorn Hunters also eventually made a home on the online streaming platform Binge Networks. [12] [13] [14]
In 2022, the founders of the company behind the show developed a cryptocurrency called “Unicoin”. The currency was developed for investors to fund new “high growth” companies according to co-founder Silvina Moschini. [15]
Fellow co-founder Konanykhin has also stated that the “coin was backed by venture capital investments in scaleups”. Companies backing unicoin have included the healthcare company Mymee. By May 2022 Unicoin was invested in five different companies, with $25 million unicoins sold. Owners of unicoin have a stake in the cryptocurrency, but not the companies that the Unicorn Hunters themselves have stakes within. [16]
Stephen Gary Wozniak, also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electrical engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, and inventor. In 1976, he co-founded Apple Computer with his early business partner Steve Jobs. Through his work at Apple in the 1970s and 1980s, he is widely recognized as one of the most prominent pioneers of the personal computer revolution.
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc.. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are often from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
Forbes is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917 and owned by Hong Kong-based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairperson and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes, and its CEO is Mike Federle. It is based in Jersey City, New Jersey. Competitors in the national business magazine category include Fortune and Bloomberg Businessweek.
Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California which specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. As of 2022, the firm had approximately US$85 billion in assets under management.
Alex Konanykhin is an entrepreneur and former banker. He started his career by founding a private bank in Russia towards the end of communist rule. Konanykhin is sometimes spelled as Konanykhine.
Chris Dixon is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and previously worked at eBay. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Hunch. He was #1 on the Midas List in 2022. Dixon is known as a cryptocurrency and Web3 evangelist.
Rosa Gumataotao Rios is an American academic. She served as the 43rd Treasurer of the United States and is a visiting scholar at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.
Craig Plestis is the President and CEO of Smart Dog Media, a reality programming production company. Plestis is an executive producer of The Masked Singer and I Can See Your Voice.
Dato Patrick Y-Kin Grove is a Singaporean and Australian tech entrepreneur of mixed heritage.
Andreessen Horowitz is a private American venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of April 2023, Andreessen Horowitz ranks first on the list of venture capital firms by assets under management, with $42 billion as of May 2024.
Moises V. "Moe" Vela Jr. is an American attorney and political advisor. Vela is the CEO and president of The Vela Group, LLC, a global business development consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. He is also of counsel at the law firm of Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner.
Silvina Moschini is an Argentine entrepreneur. As a businesswoman, she is the founder of Yandiki, SheWorks!, and Intuic and the president of KMGi Group. As an analyst of Internet trends, she appears on networks including CNN en Español and Nuestra Tele Noticias 24 Horas.
In business, a unicorn is a startup company valued at over US$1 billion which is privately owned and not listed on a share market. The term was first published in 2013, coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures.
Digital Currency Group (DCG) is a venture capital company focusing on the digital currency market. It is located in Stamford, Connecticut. The company has the subsidiaries Foundry, Genesis, Grayscale Investments, and Luno. It also formerly owned CoinDesk.
Kavin Bharti Mittal is an Indian internet entrepreneur primarily known for his role as the founder and CEO of Hike, the company behind the unicorn Hike Messenger and the Rush Gaming Universe (RGU), a mobile gaming application.
A unicorn bubble is a theoretical economic bubble that would occur when unicorn startup companies are overvalued by venture capitalists or investors. This can either occur during the private phase of these unicorn companies, or in an initial public offering. A unicorn company is a startup company valued at, or above, $1 billion US dollars.
An initial coin offering (ICO) or initial currency offering is a type of funding using cryptocurrencies. It is often a form of crowdfunding, although a private ICO which does not seek public investment is also possible. In an ICO, a quantity of cryptocurrency is sold in the form of "tokens" ("coins") to speculators or investors, in exchange for legal tender or other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether. The tokens are promoted as future functional units of currency if or when the ICO's funding goal is met and the project successfully launches.
Brian Armstrong is an American business executive, billionaire, and investor who is CEO of cryptocurrency platform Coinbase. He received media attention for his policy of keeping the workplace free of political activism.
Frederick "Fred" Ernest Ehrsam III is an American business executive and investor who is the co-founder and former managing partner of cryptocurrency investment firm Paradigm. He is also the co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
Contrary is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm. Formed in 2016, the firm invests across early stage companies in North America and India. Select investments from the firm include DoorDash, Anduril, Ramp, Zepto, and Vise.