At least not these days. The space and AI pioneer posted a net loss of $4.28 billion in the first quarter of 2026, up more than 700% from a year ago. Revenue, meanwhile, totaled $4.69 billion in Q1, up 15% from a year ago.

As a public company, SpaceX is reportedly seeking a valuation of around $1.5 trillion or more, . It鈥檚 aiming to raise up to $80 billion or more in the offering, which would make it the largest IPO in history.

At its target valuation, SpaceX would join a rarified club of just seven U.S. public technology companies with market caps of $1.5 trillion or more. Of those, just five have crossed the $2 trillion mark.

Of course, those companies took time to grow into their 13-digit valuations. But at some point, they too made their first public IPO filings. And they too had revenue.

The similarities end there. For a sense of how SpaceX compares at IPO time to other members of the trillion-plus-club, we took a look at their original S-1s from the 1980s and onward. Here鈥檚 what their numbers looked like just before their public market debuts:

: Today, the Silicon Valley chip designer is a $5.3 trillion market cap company. Anyone who invested in its 1999 IPO, needless to say, has done extraordinarily well.

At the time of its market debut, of course, such a trajectory was not obvious. Still, it looked like a solid bet. The company, which then focused on designing 3D graphics processors for the PC market, had $93 million in revenue for the three reported quarters prior to its IPO, growing severalfold year over year. Over the same period, it posted a modest $3.5 million loss.

: Google was already the dominant player in online search when it went public in 2004, with impressive financials to boot. Revenue for the first half of that year totaled $1.35 billion, more than doubling in a year, paired with a $326 million profit.

While that was impressive, so is Google鈥檚 ongoing growth. Currently, its market cap is $4.7 trillion and it posts more than $400 billion in annual revenue, with massive profits as well.

: The iconic smartphone and computing giant knows a thing or two about longevity. Apple turned 50 last month, and it went public over 45 years ago, in 1980.

It was an impressive and attention-getting offering for the time, with $118 million in sales and nearly $12 million in profit. It helped that Apple was already a prominent consumer brand at the time due to its popular home computers. These days, its market cap hovers around $4.5 trillion.

: Microsoft went public in 1986, so it鈥檚 had some 40 years to grow into its current $3.1 trillion valuation. But even back in the era of big hair and floppy disks, the software giant鈥檚 IPO prospectus showed clear signs this would be no ordinary market entrant.

In the year before its IPO, Microsoft had revenue of $140 million and net income of $24 million. That income figure, however, includes stepped-up spending on marketing and R&D. Without those expenses, profit margins looked astoundingly high for a time before software business models were status quo.

: At the time of its public offering in 1997, Amazon was known as an online bookseller, branding itself as “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.” All the other stuff came later.

Still, it was a compelling offering at the time, with Amazon growing annual sales from zilch to around $16 million in just two-and-half years after its inception. It pitched losses as part of its growth strategy, which called for investing heavily in marketing and promotion, site development and operating infrastructure.

Needless to say, things worked out well, with Amazon currently valued at more than $2.8 trillion.

SpaceX is not like the others

If we look at the most valuable public tech companies, a few commonalities about their earlier days stand out. All went public relatively early in their operating histories and debuted with sharply growing revenue and either profits or losses in the single-digit millions.

SpaceX, founded in 2002, looks by comparison like an oldster for a company on the cusp of a public market debut. It鈥檚 also worth pointing out that Google, founded in 1998, is only four years older than SpaceX. That means, it鈥檚 had 28 years to grow into becoming a company with over $400 billion in revenue over the past 12 months and $138 billion in operating income.

SpaceX, by contrast, has had 24 years to grow into becoming a company that loses $4.3 billion in a single quarter.

Related 禁漫天堂 query:

Related reading:

• SpaceX IPO At $1.5T Valuation Would Be 10x Larger Than Biggest VC-Backed Listing Of All Time
• The IPO Pipeline Finally Gets Interesting
• PwC鈥檚 US IPO Lead On The 2026 Outlook, IPO Timing And The Secondary Boom
• IPOs Are Holding Up In 2026, But SaaS Debuts Aren鈥檛 Happening

Illustration:

Those are once again the findings from our annual 禁漫天堂 survey of where recently funded founders attended college or university. We found that alumni of the most selective U.S. schools secure a disproportionately high share of startup funding rounds.

There were no surprising names at the top of the list. The usual frontrunners 鈥� , , and 听 鈥� once again topped our ranking.

Several prestigious public research universities also scored high, along with a handful of private schools known for competitive admissions processes. Schools in or near metro areas that are startup funding hubs also showed an edge.

To illustrate, we ranked the top 37 schools for funded founders below. The ranking tracks the number of founders affiliated with each school whose startups raised seed through growth-stage funding this past year.

Let鈥檚 not understate the dominance of the leading schools

It might be nice to write a story about how choice of school need not affect one鈥檚 chances of venture-backed startup success. The data, however, indicates quite the opposite.

The dominance of alums from the top-ranked schools should not be understated. Over the past year, just over 4,400 rounds of $500,000 or more went to founders with U.S. university affiliations in 禁漫天堂. Of those rounds, roughly half went to companies with at least one founder who attended one of the top seven schools.

The top three are particularly heavy hitters, with startups with Stanford, Harvard and MIT alumni as founders drawing more than 30% of funding rounds we tracked to U.S. university-affiliated founders.

Moreover, alums of top-ranked schools also scored many of the largest funding rounds of the past year.

CEO and co-founder has degrees from Stanford and . And among recently founded heavy hitters, , co-founder of the behind AI coding tool Cursor, is an MIT grad.

is a weird one in that its founding leadership includes prestigious college dropouts. CEO and co-founder attended Stanford, while president and co-founder attended MIT and Harvard. Neither got a degree.

Flagship public universities underperform

In the realm of public universities, once again, data contradicts the preferred narrative.

Fans of flagship public universities know that these are venerable institutions when it comes to education, research and preparing graduates for successful careers. Yet despite the fact that a majority of American college students attend public institutions, these schools are not heavily represented at the top of our funded founder rankings.

UC Berkeley, of course, is the exception. As a highly selective university close to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, it鈥檚 reliably in the top four and is renowned in particular for its engineering talent. The only other public university in our top 10 is , which benefits from its large size, strong reputation and engineering talent, particularly with the growth in physical AI as a venture investment hot spot.

Now, we don鈥檛 want to sound too negative. While public universities don鈥檛 top the ranks, flagship schools nonetheless do churn out a lot of funded founders. Some that made our ranking include , , , , and , among others.

Ivies and other selective private schools

Every one of the eight universities in the made our ranking, indicating that these East Coast institutions founded in the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s are also pretty adept at launching students into the present-day startup ecosystem.

Other private universities that ranked high include , known for its robotics prowess, , which benefits from its Manhattan locale, and , which has become increasingly competitive for admissions in recent decades.

Business schools are heavy contributors

It鈥檚 also worth noting that for many universities, a high portion of funded founder alumni attended their business schools.

Among founders from University of Pennsylvania raising funds this past year, a whopping 60% went to its . For Harvard, 38% of funded founders in our 2026 analysis attended . And at , more than a quarter went to its .

While enrollment in U.S. MBA programs overall has been declining in recent years, among funded founder types, degrees from top-tier schools are clearly still opening doors.

No success without trying

The missing metric in all this analysis is something that 禁漫天堂 data doesn鈥檛 capture: Who are the founders who tried unsuccessfully to build funded startups and where did they go to school?

Given this blank spot in the data, it鈥檚 hard to say if the preponderance of funded founders from prestige schools is the result of more of them attempting to build startups or having a higher success rate, or both.

My guess would be it鈥檚 a mix of both. We hear about the Harvard or Stanford dropouts who became billionaires. But surely there are many more would-be entrepreneurs we never hear about who took a leave of absence from school, tried something without success, and then returned to complete their degrees. Or those who launched dorm room startups that didn鈥檛 become the next .

Either way, it does seem to help one鈥檚 chances of being a funded founder to attend a school in a location like the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston or New York City. Networking comes easier when one is already geographically in the center of the action.

Related reading:

• Google, Stanford And The IDF: Professional Backgrounds Of Unicorn Founders
• Where Funded Founders Went To School: 2025 Edition
• These US Universities Graduate The Highest Number Of Funded Founders
• Pandemic Didn鈥檛 Alter Dominance Of Stanford, Harvard Or MIT For Funded Founders

Illustration:

On the startup front, however, the scene has been slower to heat up this year. While deal counts remain robust, and big rounds are still getting done, overall funding is on track to decline some from last year鈥檚 peaks, despite some large rounds in recent weeks.听

The numbers: So far this year, companies in 禁漫天堂鈥檚 quantum computing category have pulled in $1.2 billion in seed- through growth-stage funding. That puts investment on track to come in below last year鈥檚 record-setting $4.1 billion haul, even with some large rounds announced in recent weeks.

Overall, however, it鈥檚 a strong showing relative to other recent years, for both deal count and total investment, as charted below.

Standout deals

This month has been the busiest of the year for large quantum financings, 禁漫天堂 data shows.

The biggest round for 2026 鈥� a $200 million financing for Vancouver-based 鈥� closed just last week. The 9-year-old company, which develops commercial-scale quantum computers and quantum networks, secured a valuation of $2 billion.

Another large funding recipient this month was , a Dutch startup building what it says will be the world鈥檚 largest dedicated quantum open architecture fab. It secured $178 million in a Series B.

Around the same time, , a London-based startup focused on silicon transistor-based quantum computing, announced a $160 million Series C co-led by and . The startup says its technology can deliver utility-scale computing with a fraction of the cost, space and energy consumption of competing options.

For a broader picture of where capital is concentration, we used 禁漫天堂 data to put together a list of the 10 largest quantum funding recipients of this year.

Public investors favor quantum

Quantum computing startups haven鈥檛 produced much in the way of profits yet. However, several higher-profile players have made it to public markets over the years, and lately investors seem to like what they see.

The four most prominent pure-play public quantum computing companies 鈥� , , 听补苍诲 鈥� are collectively valued around $36 billion by market cap today. That鈥檚 down from the peak late last year but still many multiples ahead of where these companies were a couple years ago.

Meanwhile, this spring another quantum newcomer made its debut. Toronto-based , developer of a photonic quantum computing platform, went public via a SPAC merger on and the . Its recent market cap was around $5 billion.

Public quantum computing companies have been acquiring private startups as well, often for big sums. The largest deal this past year was IonQ鈥檚 $1.08 billion purchase of , a startup known for its research prowess in quantum performance.听

D-Wave Quantum another sizable acquisition early this year, snapping up , a developer of quantum computing systems, for $550 million in stock and cash.

All eyes on Quantinuum

The most closely-watched exit in the quantum space, meanwhile, is expected in coming weeks. This month, , provider of a full-stack platform for quantum computing that is majority owned by , filed to go public on the Nasdaq.

Broomfield, Colorado-based Quantinuum a $10 billion pre-money valuation for its last private fundraise in September. While it鈥檚 not yet clear what valuation the company anticipates for its public offering, the expectation is that it will be substantially above that level.

Wherever it lands, one thing is clear: Quantum computing has a plenty of fans in the investor class who are increasingly convinced early movers can deliver in transforming technological breakthroughs into impressive earnings.

Related 禁漫天堂 queries:

Related reading:

• IonQ Acquires Oxford Ionics For $1.07B As Quantum Space Continues To Sizzle听
• Quantum Computing Hits New Venture Dollar Highmark听
• Quantum Computing Funding Hits Record High With Apparent AI Boost听
• Quantum Uncertainty Shouldn鈥檛 Stop Investors From Making The Right Bet听

Illustration:

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding deal roundup here.

Defense tech unicorn led the fundraising lineup in a week heavy with rounds for companies focused on applications in the physical world. Anduril鈥檚 $5 billion financing was by far the biggest. Other large rounds went to companies focused on supplying data power, robotics, space tech, biotech, and even strawberries.

1.听, $5B, defense tech: Defense tech unicorn Anduril Industries raised another $5 billion in funding at a $61 billion valuation 鈥� double the valuation of $30.5 billion it received less than a year ago. The Series H round, led by and , brings the Costa Mesa, California-based company鈥檚 total raised to date to $11.4 billion, .听听

2.听, $775M, energy: Houston-based VoltaGrid, a provider of mobile natural gas generators for data centers, microgrids and industrial applications, secured $1 billion in strategic investment from and . The investment includes $775 million in capital funding and a $225 million secondary purchase from existing investors.

3.听, $400M, robotics: Palo Alto, California-based Mind Robotics, developer of an AI-enabled industrial robotics platform, picked up $400 million in new financing led by . The round brings total funding to date to more than $1 billion for the startup, which launched in 2025 as a spinout of .

4.听, $275M, space tech: Cowboy Space, a developer of rockets and satellite infrastructure to power and run AI compute in space, closed on $275 million in Series B funding at a $2 billion valuation. led the financing for the San Carlos, California-based startup, which was founded by co-founder .听

5.听, $150M, indoor farming: Oishii, operator of highly automated indoor farms for growing strawberries, raised $150 million in Series C funding led by . Founded in 2016, the Jersey City, New Jersey-headquartered startup has raised $370 million in total funding to date.

6.听, $125M, cybersecurity: San Jose-based Exaforce, developer of an AI-native security operations platform, secured $125 million in Series B funding from backers including , , , 听补苍诲听 .

7.听, $122M, biotech: Create Medicines, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup focused on in vivo immunotherapies for autoimmune diseases and cancer, closed on $122 million in Series B funding. , , and led the financing.

8.听, $100M, autonomy: Providence, Rhode Island-based HavocAI, a provider of tools for developing military and commercial-grade autonomous systems across sea, air and land, secured $100 million in Series A funding. The round brings total funding to date for the 2-year-old company to $200 million.

9.听, $65M, space tech: Star Catcher, a startup that says it is building the first power grid in space by beaming concentrated solar energy on demand to satellites, picked up $65 million in Series A funding. , and led the financing for the Jacksonville, Florida-based company, which was founded less than two years ago.

10.听, $64M, data center power: GridCare, developer of technology to more efficiently provide power to AI data centers, raised $64 million in Series A funding. led the financing for the Redwood City, California-based startup.听

Related reading:

• Anduril Raises Another $5B As Defense Tech Startups Shatter Funding Records听

Illustration:

Shares of the company, which develops AI computing chips and large-scale AI systems, now trade under the ticker symbol CBRS. Earlier, Cerebras had priced its shares听well above the projected range of $150 to $160, raising at least $5.55 billion for the company, according to a .听

The IPO has been a long time coming for Sunnyvale, California-based Cerebras, which initially filed publicly for an IPO in September 2024. It withdrew the planned offering a year later, opting to continue raising capital in private markets.

Cerebras was a prodigious fundraiser as a private company. It secured $2.85 billion in equity funding and $1.85 billion in debt financing over the years, per 禁漫天堂 data, securing most of that total in the past year.

The company’s largest venture stakeholders include (11.3% of Class B common stock), (9.5%), (8.3%), (7.3%) and (6.5%). Benchmark, Foundation and Eclipse were lead investors in Cerebras鈥� $27 million Series A in 2016, so they appear poised to see the largest percentage gains on their holdings.

Investors in the Cerebras IPO, meanwhile, are banking on even more growth and valuation gains ahead. That said, growth of late has been impressive. Revenue increased to $510.0 million in 2025, representing year-over-year growth of 76%, and up more than sixfold over two years.

The company has an impressive list of partners and customers as well. Earlier this year, Cerebras signed a to partner with in integrating its technology into OpenAI鈥檚 compute systems. Other customers on its website include , and .

Looking ahead, Cerebras said in its IPO filing that it expects to invest more in research and development as well as sales and marketing. As for a marketing strategy, the company seems to have settled on speed, pitching itself as the builder of 鈥渢he fastest AI infrastructure in the world.鈥澨�

In coming quarters, we鈥檒l see if it succeeds in delivering on that promise at scale.

Related 禁漫天堂 query:听

• 听

Illustration:

The result is a funding scene that is drawing sustained high activity from top-name venture firms听 as well as big checks from relative newcomers and megacap strategic investors. That鈥檚 reflected in April鈥檚 tally of most active U.S. startup investors, with rankings topped by well-established VCs such as and , tech giants like and , and a few names that don鈥檛 commonly show up in the lists.

To illustrate, we used 禁漫天堂 data to aggregate most active investor rankings across multiple metrics, including venture deal count, lead rounds, and highest value lead rounds.

Most active venture investors

We鈥檒l start with most active venture investors, looking at those who participated in the largest number of startup funding rounds for $5 million or more at any stage.

By this metric, came out on top, with 11 rounds. The famed accelerator commonly tops this ranking as it participates as a non-lead investor in follow-on rounds for startups it incubated.

Khosla Ventures and tied for second, with nine rounds each, followed by and with seven rounds each. Below we rank the top X most active venture investors for the month:

Neo鈥檚 inclusion is noteworthy as it鈥檚 a newcomer to the top of the ranks. The San Francisco incubator has an investment model that shares similarities with Y Combinator, providing mentorship and seed funding to upstarts and securing participation rights for follow-on rounds.

Another standout high in the rankings with six deals was , an investor focused on diverse and inclusive teams that has strong ties to the LGBTQ+ community. Gaingels has long been a prolific seed investor and participant in follow-on rounds. But as average deal sizes overall rise, Gaingels鈥� follow-on rounds have been getting bigger too.

Most active and highest spending lead investors

Among lead investors, Khosla Ventures took the top slot, with a lead- or co-lead role in seven April rounds exceeding $5 million. Andreessen Horowitz was the next-busiest lead investor, with five deals.

For a bigger-picture view, below we list the top X most active lead investors for April:

When we turn to highest-spending lead investors, the ranks shift some. This list looks at investors who led or co-led rounds with the highest aggregate value in April.听

It鈥檚 not an exact tally of who put the most capital to work, given that syndicate rounds don鈥檛 break out each lead investors鈥� share. However, it does provide a general idea of the heaviest spenders.

For April, Google was the single largest lead investor, thanks to its reported $10 billion investment in , a deal that includes terms for another potential $30 billion to come. Amazon was next on the list, with a $5 billion Anthropic investment of its own, and up to $20 billion to come, as part of a for compute power.

Next on the list were two that don鈥檛 typically top our ranks: and . The two firms co-led a $1 billion April Series F for AI data and computing platform at a $30 billion valuation.

Overall, a bit slower

While the April active investor data doesn鈥檛 scream 鈥渟lowdown,鈥� the month was nonetheless somewhat less busy than March in terms of deal counts by top dealmakers. Given that AI enthusiasm has not dissipated and massive deals continue to get done, it鈥檚 not clear that is an indicator of changing investor appetites.听

For now, we鈥檒l avoid reading too much into month-to-month fluctuations and wait to see whether further tallies point to a broader change in the investment climate.

Related reading:

• Get To Know The Latest Class Of Ultra-Fast Fundraising Unicorns听
• Frontier Labs And Robotics Companies Again Top List Of New Unicorns In April
• Most Active And Highest-Spending Startup Investors Diverged In Q1听

Illustration:

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding deal roundup here.

Another week, another infusion of big AI rounds. For this past week, the largest fundraiser by a long shot was , a developer of AI customer experience tools that picked up $950 million. Other big rounds went to companies in sectors including satellite development, biotech, and, yes, more vertical AI and AI infrastructure.

1. , $950M, customer experience AI: Sierra, a provider of AI-driven tools for customer experience management, raised $950 million in fresh funding at a $15 billion valuation. and led the financing for the three-year-old, San Francisco-based company.

2.听, $455M, space tech: Astranis, a developer of advanced satellites for high orbits, secured $450 million in equity and debt investment. The financing included a $300 million Series E equity round led by and and up to $155 million in credit through .听

3.听, $250M, biotech: Natick, Massachusetts-based Anagram Therapeutics, a developer of a pill for people living with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency due to cystic fibrosis, pancreatic cancer and related disorders, closed on $250 million in new funding from .听

4.听, $200M, AI software development: Blitzy, developer of an autonomous software development platform, picked up $200 million in fresh funding at a $1.4 billion valuation. Northzone led the financing for the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company.听听

5. , $160M, insurance: Corgi Insurance, provider of an AI-native insurance platform for startups, secured $160 million in Series B funding. led the financing, which set a $1.3 billion valuation for the San Francisco-based company.听

6. , $140M, renewable energy: Portland, Oregon-based Panthalassa, which aims to perform AI inference computing at sea using power generated from ocean waves, raised $140 million in a Series B financing led by .

7. , $125M, insurance: Reserv, a provider of third-party administrator services to the insurance industry, closed on $125 million in a Series C funding round led by . Launched in 2022, New York-based Reserv has raised over $200 million in known funding to date, per 禁漫天堂 data.

8.听, $107M, AI infrastructure: DeepInfra, a cloud platform for high-throughput AI inference, landed $107 million in Series B funding. and led the financing for the four-year-old, Palo Alto, California-based company.

9. , $60M, vertical AI: San Jose, California-based Tessera Labs, developer of an AI platform for enterprise ERP systems and data, secured $60 million in a funding round led by .听

10. , $56M, gaming: Astrocade, developer of an AI platform for creating, building and playing games, announced $56 million in new funding. The funding for the Los Altos, California-based company includes a Series B led by and a Series A led by , Astrocade said.听

Illustration:

In that role at least, we鈥檙e all pretty familiar with the current state-of-the-art in advertising, marketing and customer experience management technology. And we can all attest it鈥檚 quite skilled at separating us from our disposable income.

Still, startups and their backers see myriad paths to do better. With that in mind, they鈥檝e deployed billions of dollars in recent quarters to a heavily AI-driven cohort of companies largely focused on improving efficiency by deploying agentic tools to their chosen niches.

The broad trend: We鈥檙e not back to boom times. Venture funding to sales, marketing and CRM categories actually hit its cyclical peak in 2021 and 2022. Investment has slowed down considerably since, with annual funding hovering around the $8 billion mark in the past three years, 禁漫天堂 data shows.

Not surprisingly, however, AI-focused companies are scooping up a much larger share of funding than during the prior peak, with a majority of sales, marketing and CRM-focused investment going to companies in 禁漫天堂 AI-related categories.

The numbers: So far in 2026, companies in sales, marketing and CRM categories have pulled in around $3.7 billion globally in seed- through growth-stage funding, per 禁漫天堂 data.听

That puts the space on track to come in roughly flat with or a bit up from the prior three years, and still far below boom-era levels, when sales and marketing investment topped $20 billion.

Standout deals

The past few weeks have been particularly busy on the funding front, with multiple big rounds.

In the customer experience area, AI unicorn pulled in a $950 million megaround this week led by and The financing set a $15 billion valuation for the San Francisco-based company, which offers AI-driven customer experience tools to companies.

Another recent large funding recipient was , developer of an agentic marketing platform, which closed last week on a $150 million Series D financing led by and , valuing the company at $2.75 billion. The San Francisco startup offers AI agents that carry out audience research, generate brand content and conduct digital marketing campaigns.

, developer of an agentic customer experience platform for enterprises operating at scale in what it describes as high-stakes, regulated environments, picked up another sizable financing. Last week, the San Mateo, California-based company closed on $110 million in new funding led by .

Also last month, , developer of agentic AI tools for go-to-market teams, secured its Series B. The New York startup raised $45 million in a round co-led by and .

One of the year鈥檚 biggest rounds for the marketing and CRM space, meanwhile, came earlier this year. , developer of an AI agent management platform for enterprise customer service, locked up $350 million in a January Series D. General Catalyst led the financing, which brought the听 Berlin-based startup鈥檚 valuation to $3 billion.

Exits and outlook

Big startup M&A deals are also happening, albeit in small quantities.

Just two weeks ago, payment platform announced that it will acquire , a loyalty and incentives platform for merchants, for around $880 million. Berlin-based Talon had previously raised over $120 million in venture funding.

Another large transaction, announced last summer, was 鈥� purchase of Dusseldorf-based , a conversational AI platform for customer support, in a deal valuing the latter at around $955 million.

As for IPOs, activity has been more muted. One exception was , a platform for brands to launch TV commercials, which made its debut a year ago and is currently trading well below its post-IPO price.

It鈥檚 not surprising to see IPO activity muted. The enterprise software IPO market has been muted for months now, driven by investor worries over AI impact on SaaS business models. Startups focused on vertical AI since inception, meanwhile, are a more youthful cohort, mostly not yet prime for public markets.听

Give them time, however, and it鈥檚 likely these AI-driven upstarts will come up with plenty of ingenious techniques to separate us from more of our spending money. And when they do, expect exits to follow.

Related 禁漫天堂 query:

Related reading:

• Exclusive: Schematic Raises $6.5M To Help Companies Update Their Pricing Faster And Easier In The AI Era
• Exclusive: Winn.ai Raises $18M Series A For AI-Powered Real-Time Sales Assistant听
• AI-Powered Sales Automation Startup Clay More Than Doubles Valuation To $3.1B听

Illustration:

This phenomenon has been on the rise over the past couple years, driven by voracious investor appetite for AI early movers. Since 2024, an estimated 207 AI-focused companies have joined The 禁漫天堂 Unicorn Board. That鈥檚 roughly half of all companies that first hit valuations of $1 billion or more during this period.

Of those, more than a third first secured 10-figure valuations at seed or early stage. That includes some of the most well-known newish unicorns in sectors like foundational AI, robotics and vertical AI.

Many newish unicorns are worth a lot more than $1 billion

While a $1 billion valuation is the threshold for claiming unicorn status, many newer entrants to the group are now worth much more than that.

Per 禁漫天堂 data, at least 45 companies that became unicorns in the past 28 months are now valued at $5 billion or more. That鈥檚 just over 10% of the total cohort.

So who鈥檚 at the top? To answer that question, we put together a sample list of 18 high-profile, newish unicorns with a most recent post-money valuation of $5 billion or more.

Notably, many of these are very young companies. U.K.-based AI infrastructure startup , for instance, launched from stealth just a year ago as a spin-out of crypto mining firm . It recently secured a $14.6 billion post-money valuation.

, a developer of AI-enabled software to control robots, has also scaled up quickly since its inception in 2024. This year, the San Francisco company is reportedly to raise fresh funding at a valuation exceeding $11 billion.

Foundational AI startup , meanwhile, has raised around $3 billion in less than two years since its founding. A round last spring set a $32 billion valuation for the Palo Alto, California-based company.

Newer unicorns are also fundraising at a fast clip

In addition to their youth and ultra-high valuations, many newer unicorns also stand out for the speed and magnitude of their fundraising.

San Francisco-based AI legal tech platform , for instance, has gone from Series A to Series G in about three years and raised close to $1.2 billion along the way.

Predictions marketplaces and are remarkably fast fundraisers as well. New York鈥檚 Kalshi has gone from Series C to Series E in the past year, pulling in over $2.4 billion. And Polymarket, another New York-based company听 has scooped up close to $2.9 billion in the past two years.

Foundational AI is also scaling superfast. Medical AI company went from Series A to Series D in less than a year, with the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company picking up over $700 million from early 2025 to early 2026. , the developer of AI coding tool Cursor, went from Series A to Series D in under a year, securing over $3.2 billion in that time frame. The San Francisco-based company most recently entered an agreement with , giving the latter Cursor for $60 billion.

Move fast and build things

These are of course remarkable times for mega fundraising rounds, particularly around AI. Cynics might question valuations and check sizes, while optimists might quickly point out that we are in the early days of building foundational technologies of the modern era.

I suppose both have a point. For now, we鈥檙e less inclined to pick winners and more engaged in simply keeping score. One thing is clear: It鈥檚 a very well-capitalized playing field.

Related 禁漫天堂 queries:

Related reading:

• This Is A Momentous Year For Early-Stage Unicorns
• The Largest Recent Seed Rounds Are All For AI Companies
• Investors Are Once Again Rapidly Minting Early-Stage Startups As Unicorns

Illustration:

This is a weekly feature that runs down the week鈥檚 top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week鈥檚 biggest funding deal roundup here.

This week, just half of the top 10 rounds crossed the $100 million mark, which is somewhat unusual in this high-flying era for venture megarounds. Nonetheless some large checks did get written, led by 鈥檚 $5 billion investment and partnership deal with . Other sizable rounds went to companies in sectors including aviation autonomy, vision therapy and AI analytics.

1. , $5B, foundational AI: AI giant Anthropic that Amazon is investing $5 billion in the company, with up to an additional $20 billion in the future. Previously, Amazon had invested $8 billion in the San Francisco-based company. The latest financing also includes a partnership with Amazon for training and deploying Anthropic鈥檚 AI assistant Claude.

2. , $160M, autonomous aircraft: Reliable Robotics, a developer of autonomous aircraft systems, raised $160 million in fresh financing led by . The 9-year-old, Mountain View, California-based company markets its technology for both commercial and defense aviation.

3. , $125M, vision therapy: San Diego-based Ray Therapeutics, a biotech startup focused on vision restoration therapies, secured $125 million in Series B funding led by . Founded in 2021, Ray has raised $247 million in venture and grant funding to date, per .

4. , $120M, AI analytics: Omni, developer of an AI-enabled analytics platform, closed on $120 million in Series C funding led by . The financing set a $1.5 billion valuation for the 4-year-old, San Francisco-based company.

5. , $106M, biotech: Framingham, Massachusetts-based Tortugas Neurosciences, neurology-focused biotech startup, scooped up $106 million in Series A funding. Founding investor co-led the round alongside and .

6. , $80M, medtech: AcuityMD, an AI-enabled data and research platform for medtech industry customers, picked up $80 million in Series C investment. led the funding for the 7-year-old, Boston-based company.

7. , $75M, foundational AI: that it purchased $75 million worth of San Francisco-based OpenAI鈥檚 common stock. The shares are owned by Robinhood Ventures Fund I, a publicly traded fund that provides investors exposure to a curated portfolio of private companies.

8. , $60M, workflow orchestration: Orkes, developer of an AI-enabled software workflow orchestration platform, secured $60 million in Series B funding. led the financing for the 5-year-old, Silicon Valley-based startup.

9. , $50M, health tech: Courier Health, a developer of tools to improve patient experience for people with chronic conditions or rare diseases, closed on $50 million in Series B funding. led the financing for the New York-based company.

10. , $50M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Serif Bio颅med颅i颅cines, a biotech颅 startup focused on Mod颅i颅fied DNA as a new class of med颅i颅cines, launched with $50 million in initial funding from .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the 禁漫天堂 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of April 18-24. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration: