Meet the world's top 15 unicorn hunters: These funds are backing dozens of booming startups

US firm Tiger Global Management was the overall top firm pick with 42 unicorns in its portfolio, according to research firm CB Insights. Tiger Global has companies like Juul, Palantir, and Grab in its collection of mega start ups.

China's Tencent has 40 unicorns in its portfolio with a cumulative value of $177 billion including Epic Games and Ola.

Japan's SoftBank — a major investor in WeWork and Uber — has the most valuable portfolio as it continues to pump Saudi Arabian money into the world's most exciting companies. (Almost half of its $93 billion Vision Fund was funded by the kingdom.)

Despite having the most unicorns in its portfolio, Tiger Global's companies are cumulatively worth 45% less than SoftBank's portfolio which is worth a massive $389 billion. Intriguingly, Softbank has backed the most unicorns which come from outside the US and China — 18 — with the vast majority coming from the world's two largest economies.

Sequoia Capital China has backed the most number of Chinese unicorns (27), representing 29% of all China-based unicorns.

Sequoia Capital has notably backed Stripe, stockbroker Robinhood, and Snowflake.

Kleiner Perkins is a backer of Slack and Instacart.

DST Global was famously an early backer of Twitter and has exciting names like Gojek and DoorDash in its portfolio.

Office leaser WeWork is among the main highlights of Fidelity Investment's unicorn portfolio.

Andreessen Horowitz is a backer of Stripe and Airbnb and is also a big backer in early stage funding, having provided either seed or series A money to 11 unicorns.

Wellington Management has backed Airbnb, Coinbase, and Money Leap in its portfolio.

Accel is just outside the top 10, with 24 unicorns in its portfolio.

"It's our job as venture capitalists to stand out and show them [potential unicorns] how we roll up our sleeves to support them as much as we can," said Lixandru. "I have been known to travel to Eastern Europe, Israel, and the US to successfully convince an entrepreneur to work with us. Now, I'm happy I did!"

In 12th is SV Angel. The fund has backed the most unicorns from either seed or series A funding on the list, making it a key talent spotter.

Institutional Venture Partners has 23 unicorns in its portfolio.

Google, via its Google Ventures unit, has fingers in many pies. The search engine giant is a major player in tech startup world with 23 unicorns.

Rounding out the top 15 is Goldman Sachs. One of the world's biggest banks has been boosting its investment in startups in recent years, having gone from 12 unicorns in 2015, to 23 now.