Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 'Startup Mahakumbh event' in March 2024 said that India had emerged as the world's third-biggest startup ecosystem with over 1.25 lakh startups and 110 unicorns. He said that the country was on track to become a developed nation by making the right decisions at the right time.

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Startups have also become an important part of the business landscape, and almost every startup aims to become a 'unicorn' one day. There is a variety of milestones that startups can achieve such as becoming a minicorn, soonicorn, unicorn, decacorn, or hectocorn. Apart from these, one more category is there called 'Zombie'.

These terms may sound like cartoon characters but every term has a different meaning. In this article, we will discuss these startup terms, right from Minicorn to Zombie.

Minicorn: Startups with a valuation of $1 million or more called Minicorns. These firms have a solid vision and aspire to become unicorns in the near future.

Soonicorn: As the name says, Soonicorn means 'soon to become Unicorn'. They calculate the business's value based on future industry market projections and company values. This is a favourable situation that will allow startups to join these Soonicorn groups early and move closer to a $1 billion asset valuation. 

Unicorn: A unicorn is a startup that generates more than a billion dollars. Getting into the unicorn club is not simple.

This word was coined by Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures, and first appeared in 2013.

Decacorn: A company that has a valuation of more than $10 billion is called 'Decacorn'. Facebook, the first Decacorn, achieved the status in 2017. It had crossed the $10 billion valuation after receiving $240 million funding from Microsoft.

Hectocorn: Hectocorn refers to a tech, financial, or fintech company with a valuation of more than $100 billion. These firms have another name called "Super Unicorn". Heactacorn is used by several well-known companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Oracle, and Cisco.

Zombie: A zombie startup is a firm that is neither dead nor living. It's a startup that has enough money to function but isn't expanding or producing much income.