Abstract: increased competition leads to a decrease in the marginality of traditional tools for doing business. The introduction of digital innovation is the main competitive advantage for the sustainable development of companies. At the same time, the growth of the successful startups market can become a driver for the development of key industries and has a high growth potential. The need to analyze and identify the specifics of high-tech companies to facilitate the process of investment choice determines the relevance of the research. Misunderstanding the general characteristics of unicorns makes it difficult to identify startups with high development potential for investment and choosing a strategy for innovative development of companies. The scientific work presents the results of an analysis of a number of scientific studies, statistical and rating data on unicorns in order to identify patterns that affect the development of companies and assign them unicorn status. There is a lack of a unified terminology and a unified approach to determining a startup at the stage of assigning it the status of a unicorn. The aim of the work is to study the patterns of functioning of the market for high-tech companies. Taking these characteristics into account they will help to identify problems in the analysis of high-tech companies by the CEO of companies and investors in the early stages. The study has theoretical and practical significance for CEO of companies and investors. The article describes the characteristic patterns of the formation of unicorns. It is planned to determine the characteristic features of startups, which makes it possible to turn into unicorns based on the identified patterns of formation and development of unicorns.
Keywords: unicorn, IPO, company capitalization, Fintech, startup, venture capital investments