Kymab is the twentieth such business and was valued at $1.45billion in its purchase by Sanofi this month.
While the purchase means it isn’t truly defined as a unicorn, the valuation is still a huge credit to the founders, the whole team of people involved as it has grown, and to some extent the nurturing ecosystem of Cambridge.
Through recent years, many businesses that have started in Cambridge have scaled up and become great successes – the list includes - in alphabetical order: Abcam, ARM, Autonomy, AVEVA, Blinx, Cambridge Antibody Technology, Cambridge Medical Robotics, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Chiroscience, Darktrace, Domino, Frontier, Improbable, Ionica, Kymab, Marshall, Prometic, Solexa, Virata and Xaar.
Some have multiplied since reaching the threshold, a few have crashed, and the ecosystem has learnt lessons from each one. Other businesses have been formed here and become part of international corporations, hugely increasing their reach to the world but not counting in the home-grown list.
Cambridge Network Executive Director Claire Ruskin comments on the wonderful diversity of Cambridge’s impact on the world and asks: "Is it time for another Cambridge Phenomenon Conference Charles, Tony and Hermann?"
Image: © Kymab