Another unicorn company has appeared on the U.S. scene, this time from the world of online marketplaces. Faire, which offers local retailers a wholesale marketplace to sell their wares, raised $150 million for its Series D funding round. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Founders Fund, and included further funding from existing investors like Khosla Ventures, YC Continuity, and Forerunner Ventures.
Total funding raised by Faire to date is nearly $270 million, with total valuation sitting at over $1 billion. That means official unicorn designation for a private startup. Faire employs 193 people in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Ontario, Canada.
As Faire grows among U.S. online marketplaces, it will be looking to compete with major players in the industry like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart as well as Sears, Jet, Bonanza, Wish, and OfferUp.
According to CB Insights, there are currently 415 unicorn companies in the world, and over 200 of those are U.S. companies. The term “unicorn company” was first used in 2013, with the mythical Bronze Age one-horned horse chosen as an image to represent the scarcity of a private startup with such high valuation. Private startups worth more than $10 billion (such as Airbnb) are deemed “decacorns,” and those worth over $100 billion (like China’s ANT Financial) are known as “hectocorns.”