If it was possible to beat silicon valley competitors we'd see a lot more unicorns outside silicon valley. You certainly can hide but you can't run ;-)
The problem I see is that the massive funding available to "SV Startups" often skews what a success really is. Say you have a startup that's received several rounds of funding and based on those rounds it's now valued at $1B+, what is that valuation really worth if you're burning cash so fast you're only 1 or 2 failed rounds away from bankruptcy. Sure it's nice to be able to say "we have a 1 billion dollar company" but what is that worth if the valuation only holds if investors keep pouring cash into it? IMHO a company that is worth $100M and can stand on it's own feet without constant infusions of cash is inherently more valuable than a company "worth" $1B but needs to make every funding round to keep the lights on.
So of course there are fewer unicorns outside of SV. The entire concept of a unicorn is tightly coupled to VC dollars.
OK, someone go launch UaaS - Unicorn as a Service: I'll buy a billionth of any company for a dolla, and you get to claim to be the latest unicorn!