For what it's worth, those German Mittelstand companies are the exact opposite of what's usually referred to as a unicorn. They are small to medium-size, multi-generational family-run and family-owned businesses that focus on a very narrow set of products, such as just making gears for automative applications, or ball bearings, or blades. The people working there often work there their whole life, with the understanding that the company doesn't take any gambles and will do its utmost to not lay them off even in recessions such as right now.

Doesn't unicorn just mean $1B+ valuation?

And that hasn't IPO'd yet.

I think it has to be a startup, i.e. recently founded, hyper growth, usually VC-funded.

A company worth a lot of money that has existed for 80 years isn't a unicorn, it's just a company worth $1B+.

When is a startup not a startup anymore. Are Facebook and Google still startups?

I like Steve Blank's definition of a start-up: "a temporary organization used to search for a repeatable and scalable business model"

Once you're executing on a scalable business model, you're a regular business.

In my opinion they are not. They were and became unicorns, but they're not any longer, they are regular Fortune 500 corporations.

Heh, in Finnish the general term "fleksi" means an adjustable dog leash. That's how ubiquitous the Flexi is in that category. Like "styroksi" for EPS (from Styrox) or "kyprokki" for drywall (from Gyproc).