Through the lens of the Morningstar PitchBook Unicorn 20 Index, which tracks the world’s largest and most liquid unicorns, Morningstar explores key trends, performance drivers, and the growing role of late-stage private companies.
Spotlight On the World’s Largest and Most Liquid Unicorns
Morningstar
Research
8 Pages
Key Takeaways
Strong Performance: The Morningstar PitchBook Unicorn 20 Index delivered strong performance in 2025, rising 107.3% compared with a 17.4% return delivered by the broadly diversified public proxy, the Morningstar US Market Index.
Private Market Growth: Late-stage private AI leaders such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Figure AI, and xAI delivered outsized gains, reinforcing that much of today’s innovation-driven growth is occurring before companies enter public markets.
Price Discovery: Trading volumes rose 72% year over year, enabling more frequent valuation updates for private companies, though liquidity remained concentrated among a small group of category leaders.
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