NEW UNICORNS: Meet the 14 startups that grew to be worth billions in 2016

In Silicon Valley, a "unicorn" is a company with a billion-dollar valuation. Its name implies how rare it should be to reach that status.

But as more money pours into startups - a prominent trend over the last few years - more and more startups are achieving "unicorn" status.

Unicorns hit a fever pitch in 2015 when 42 different startups achieved billion-dollar valuations. Yet as the data shows, becoming a unicorn wasn't quite as easy in 2016.

For the purposes of this list, Business Insider asked PitchBook Data to pull a list of US-based companies that reached a $1+ billion valuation in 2016. We then ranked them from least to most valuable based on their post-money valuations.

Here are the companies that became unicorns in 2016: