Editor’s note: This article has been updated. See footer for corrections.
Tech unicorns, like their mythical counterparts, were once rare occurrences but over the past several years VC funding has boomed and so has the number of unicorns. Crunchbase estimates that there are now over 1,000 unicorn companies in existence. In fact, the label unicorn has become so popular that investors minted a new word for startups with a valuation higher than $12 billion. Despite unicorn status not being as exclusive as it was once, it is still an amazing feat for companies to reach.
Fintech company Avant reached the $1 billion valuation mark just three years after launching in November of 2012. The company reached unicorn status after raising a $325 million Series E round, which closed in November of 2015.
Headquartered in Chicago, Avant employs around 250 local individuals and has a total of 550 employees worldwide. The company was co-founded by Al Goldstein, John Sun and Paul Zhang.
Despite Avant being highly attractive to investors, it remains under private ownership and never went public. To date, the company says it has brought in $659 million in venture funding.
The fintech platform offers personal loans ranging between $2,000 and $35,0000 at lower interest rates than other lenders. It also provides credit lines and online banking with the goal of making financial services more attainable to all residents.
While not all startups reach unicorn status at record-breaking speeds, several local startups have joined the Chicago unicorn club. Most recently Copado, a no-code cloud operations platform, hit the $1 billion valuation late last year. Last June, B2B software sales review platform G2 was also inaugurated into the club.
Avant currently has several jobs available across multiple departments.
