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The purpose of this study is to explore the exogenous and endogenous drivers of the high-growth of Unicorn start-ups along their life cycle, with a particular focus on Unicorns in the fintech industry.

The study employs an explorative longitudinal analysis with a matched-pair of two cases of Unicorns start-ups with similar antecedent features to understand holistically drivers over the longer term.

High-growth patterns over the longer term are the result of a combined industry- and company-life cycle perspective. Drivers and growth patterns vary significantly according to the time of entry in the industry and its development status. The findings are systematised within a set of propositions to be tested in future research.

The limitations lie in empirical evidence, as the analysis is limited to one-matched-pair. The revealed Unicorns' drivers for long-term growth might encourage future research to further investigate these drivers on a larger scale.

The study offers practical recommendations for start-ups with high-growth ambitions and advice to policy makers regarding the development of tailor-made support programs.

The study significantly extends extant work on growth and high-growth by examining endogenous and exogenous triggers over time and by linking the Unicorn-life cycle to the industry life cycle, an approach which has, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, not yet been applied.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize strategic agility in entrepreneurial internationalization and highlight the role of marketing “under particular conditions” – those of early and fast internationalizers.

The study is based on in-depth case studies of four entrepreneurial internationalizers using an inductive approach. The role of marketing is studied along a set of four key business processes, i.e. sensing through selective customer/partner intimacy; business development through selective experimentation and testing; coordination and harmonization of multiple stakeholders; and creative extension of resources.

Strategic agility is a composite of flexibility and selective responsiveness. Marketing thought, mainly through customer and partner interaction, plays a prominent role in achieving strategic agility. Customer- and market-centric thinking needs to be built in a key set of business processes. Marketing’s contribution to strategic agility means an ability to cope with time, relationship and functional dependencies. Strategic agility helps improve the risk profile of the entrepreneurial internationalizer. Entrepreneurial internationalizers are particularly suited to compete on and benefit from strategic agility.

The findings show managers and entrepreneurs in early and fast internationalizing ventures a path to strategic agility which helps to overcome the many parallel challenges that come with firm foundation and internationalization.

Strategic agility is a novel explanation for entrepreneurial internationalization. The study explains the prominent role played by marketing in achieving strategic agility and growth. Strategic agility is reconceptualized in the context of the young and small internationalizing firm.

Reaching customers globally and building a global brand and market presence is a demanding task for any firm. For early and rapidly internationalising small firms this is exceptionally challenging due to the restraints that ensue from the liabilities of smallness, newness and foreignness and the speed of their internationalisation. We argue that entrepreneurial marketing is a driver of entrepreneurial internationalisation and one of the – neglected – explanations for superior international performance. The authors conceptualise entrepreneurial marketing along four core (marketing) abilities which fit particularly well the international new firm and show how these positively impact on early and accelerated internationalisation and alter the risk profile of the venture in general.