After rising nearly 36% in 2025, the Morningstar PitchBook Global Unicorn Index has continued to outrace broader indexes measuring public equities so far in 2026, according to Morningstar Indexes.
The Index, which tracks the performance of late-stage venture-backed companies globally with a valuation of $1 billion or more, has risen 10.7% in 2026 through Feb. 20, as compared to a 4.5% rise for the Morningstar Global Markets Index and a 1.3% rise for the Morningstar US Market Index.
The largest constituents of the Global Unicorn Index include Anthropic (6.0%), OpenAI (5.3%), SpaceX (3.5%) and ByteDance (3.2%).
Sanjay Arya – Head of Index Innovation, Morningstar Indexes:
“Indexes like the Morningstar PitchBook Global Unicorn Index play a crucial role in fueling innovation, supporting entrepreneurship, and driving market growth. Public equity markets no longer represent the full scope of the global economy. Venture capital, as reflected by the post-money valuation of companies in PitchBook’s venture-backed database, now represents 9% of the global market, up from 2% over a decade ago, making its integration important for investor portfolios.”
For a deeper dive on this topic, we suggest readers check out “Unicorns and the growth of private markets.”
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