The billion-dollar tech unicorn is becoming rare again

The hot social media network BeReal — which is gaining steam with young people as a casual alternative to Instagram — recently raised money, a key milestone on the path of any successful start-up.

It had all the elements of a buzzy start-up, like Snapchat, Clubhouse and Pinterest before it. It was popular with college students and even beat out social media video rival TikTok on Apple’s App Store. But when a report this month confirmed how investors valued the company, it was reportedly worth in the ballpark of $600 million — far short of the “unicorn” status of more than $1 billion many of its predecessors earned in frothier times.