World's 10 most valuable start-ups

It’s raining start-ups across the world and their valuations are soaring like never before.

Indian company Flipkart is among the world’s 10 most valuable start ups.

According to The Wall Street Journal, there are 73 companies with a valuation of more than $1 billion.

The number of companies valued at $10 billion or more doubled in 2014 to eight companies, says WSJ.

Take a look at 10 start-ups in the top league of $10 billion club.

Xiaomi

Rank: 1
Latest Valuation: $46.0 billion
Total Equity Funding: $1.4 billion                            
Founder: Lei Jun

Founded in 2010, Xiaomi, a leading a mobile internet company in China is taking the world by storm with affordable smartphones.

In just 4 years, Xiaomi has become the largest smartphone maker in China and the third largest smartphone maker in the world.

Xiaomi’s smartphones have become a rage in India as well.

Uber

Rank: 2
Latest Valuation: $41.2 billion
Total Equity Funding: $2.8 billion
Founders: Travis Kalanick, Garrett Camp 

Founded in 2009 in San Francisco, Uber connect customers with taxi drivers though an app.

The service is now available in more than 270 cities across the globe.

Palantir

Rank: 3
Latest Valuation: $15.0 billion
Total Equity Funding: $1.0 billion
Founders: Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, Nathan Gettings

American computer software and services company, Palantir Technologies, specialises in data analysis.

Initially, it served federal agencies of the United States Intelligence Community. Now it serves state and local governments, as well as private companies in the financial and healthcare sectors.

Snapchat

Rank: 4
Latest Valuation: $15.0 billion
Total Equity Funding: $815 million
Founders: Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown 

A popular photo messaging application, Snapchat was developed by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown when there were at the StanfordUniversity.

Using Snapchat, users can click photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a list of recipients. 

SpaceX

Rank: 5
Latest Valuation: $12.0 billion
Total Equity Funding: $1.1 billion
Founder: Elon Musk

Founded in 2002, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is based in California.

Former Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk founded the company with the ambitious goal of making space transportation easier and affordable.

SpaceX develops and manufactures space launch vehicles. 

Pinterest

Rank: 6
Latest Valuation: $11.0 billion
Total Equity Funding: $1.1 billion
Founders: Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp 

Pinterest is a web and mobile application company, which runs a photo sharing website.

Users can upload, save, sort, and manage images for free on this site.

Flipkart

Rank: 7
Latest Valuation: $11.0 billion
Total Equity Funding: $2.5 billion
Founders: Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal

The only Indian start-up to be listed among the top ten is Flipkart, which has seen a remarkable growth in just 7 years.

Founced in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Flipkart offers a wide range of products online. 

Airbnb

Rank: 8
Latest Valuation: $10.0 billion
Total Equity Funding: $800 million
Founder: Nathan Blecharczyk, Joe Gebbia, Brian Chesky

Founded in August 2008 in in San Francisco, California, Airbnb is a website for people to rent out lodging.

It is a fast growing start-up with over 800,000 listings in 33,000 cities across 192 countries. 

Dropbox

Rank: 9
Latest Valuation: $10.0 billion
Total Equity Funding: $607 million
Founders: Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Dropbox is a file hosting service that offers cloud storage, file synchronisation, personal cloud, and client software.

Dropbox was founded in 2007 by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi. 

Theranos
Rank: 10
Latest Valuation: $9.0 billion
Total Equity Funding: $400 million
Founder: Elizabeth Holmes       

Theranos is a privately held health technology and medical laboratory services company. 

Based in California, the company's blood testing platform uses juta few drops of blood for tests.