Twenty-one of last month’s new unicorns are U.S. headquartered. Six new unicorns joined the board from China and three from the U.K., while Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Israel, Italy, Finland, Germany and Bulgaria each added one new unicorn.

Through September, 311 companies have joined the board so far this year, putting 2026 on track to be the second-highest year for new unicorn creation, following only the venture peak year of 2021, when counts topped 600.

Several companies already on the board stand out for significant valuation increases via new raises last month. They include San Francisco-based , developer of AI for software engineering, which saw its value climb to $48 billion, up from $26 billion only four months earlier. Data center provider was valued at $31 billion last month, up from $10 billion a year ago. And Paris-based frontier lab was valued at $24.4 billion in its more recent funding, up from $13.7 billion a year ago.

New unicorns in September

Here are September’s 38 new unicorn companies:

Semiconductors

• , an Austin-based semiconductor manufacturing startup, closed a $500 million Series A at a $3.7 billion valuation, led by . The 3-year-old company builds compact chip factories and develops their manufacturing equipment internally, aiming to make semiconductor production more accessible.
• , an Irvine, California-based semiconductor company, raised a $275 million Series C, valuing it above $3 billion and bringing total funding to $415 million. , and led the round. The 2-year-old company develops digital signal processing chips for high-speed optical connectivity in AI infrastructure.
• , a Hangzhou-based AI chip developer, announced a $149 million Series C. Its IoT inference chips combine memory and computing to reduce power consumption and data movement. The 5-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.
• , a Beijing-based AI chip company, raised $298 million at a valuation of $2.2 billion. The 4-year-old company develops AI computing chips using the open RISC-V architecture.

• , a San Jose, California-based developer of specialized AI chips and software, raised a $150 million Series C at a $1.45 billion valuation, co-led by and , bringing total funding to $500 million. The proceeds for the 8-year-old company will support its software platform and next-generation hardware for robots, vehicles and drones.

Financial services

• , a Texas-based prediction-market platform, announced a strategic partnership with , which will take an equity stake following OG’s separation from . The less than 1-year-old company was valued at $5 billion. The investment amount was not disclosed; the partnership will route Robinhood event-contract trading through OG’s regulated exchange and clearing infrastructure.
• Saudi Arabia-based , a digital payments company, raised a $329.5 million Series A at a $1.85 billion valuation. Investors included , and . The 3-year-old company has processed more than $117 billion in 2 years.
• , a Nevada-based financial software company, raised a $250 million Series E at a $1.43 billion valuation led by founder and chairman . The 8-year-old company provides an AI-based investment management platform for asset and wealth managers.
• , a Miami-based remittance platform for Latino immigrants operating through , secured $200 million in financing: an $87 million Series C equity round led by valued at $1.4 billion and $113 million in debt from ’s Customer Value Fund. The 5-year-old company plans to expand to lending and add to its Latin American reach.

Space technology

• Munich-based space company raised a $450 million Series C, co-led by , and at a valuation of $2 billion. The financing for the 5-year-old company will advance its reusable Nyx spacecraft for an International Space Station mission and support development of its Storm rocket engine.
• , a Seattle-based satellite connectivity company, raised a $200 million Series C at a $1.6 billion valuation, led by , bringing total funding to approximately $300 million. The 5-year-old company enables standard Bluetooth devices to connect directly to satellites for tracking and sensor-data applications.
• Oxfordshire, U.K-based , a satellite company, secured $346 million, co-led by and, valued at $1 billion. The 11-year-old company manufactures satellites and provides infrastructure, connectivity, Earth observation and intelligence services.
• Bulgaria-based , a satellite company, raised $205 million in a round co-led by and , reaching a $1 billion valuation. The 11-year-old company has raised financing that will expand standardized spacecraft production, including new manufacturing capacity in the U.S. and Europe.

Biotechnology and medical devices

• , a Framingham, Massachusetts-based developer of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, raised around $79 million. The �� 13-year-old company was valued at $1.9 billion. Investors were not disclosed.
• Shanghai-based , an AI drug discovery company, raised $290 million at a $1.5 billion valuation following its spinoff from . , , and co-led the round. Anew develops tools for biomolecular prediction and drug discovery; ByteDance retained a 56% stake.
• , a New York-based brain-computer interface developer, closed a $250 million Series D, bringing total funding to $430 million and reaching a valuation of approximately $1 billion. and led the round. The 5-year-old company is building a brain–computer interface that is minimally invasive and removable.
• Toronto-based , a biotechnology company, raised $153 million at a $1 billion valuation led by the , with participation from and other investors. The 3-year-old company uses AI to identify abandoned drug candidates that could succeed under different treatment approaches. The financing will expand clinical development and support additional drug acquisitions.

AI and internet infrastructure

• , a San Francisco-based AI cloud infrastructure company, raised a $300 million Series B at a $3 billion valuation, led by . The 3-year-old company distributes AI inference workloads across different types of chips to improve performance and efficiency. It announced in March that its customers include one of the leading frontier labs.
• Helsinki-based , an AI cloud company, raised a $189 million Series B led by . The financing valued the 6-year-old company above $1 billion with total funding over $450 million. The company manages physical data centers along with its cloud platform.
• London-based , an internet infrastructure company supporting content delivery for large streaming, gaming and software companies, raised $570 million in its first external financing led by . The 15-year-old company was valued at $1.9 billion.

AI training

• , a San Francisco-based AI training-data company, raised more than $100 million led by at a $4 billion valuation, an eightfold increase from its valuation in September 2025. The 4-year-old company recruits and vets specialists who create training and evaluation data for AI developers. that participants included two frontier AI laboratories and two co-founders.
• , a San Francisco-based provider of expert-created AI training data, reached a $3.2 billion valuation in September, earlier, according to . The funding amount and lead investor were not publicly disclosed. The 1-year-old company’s datasets capture professional reasoning in fields such as software engineering, law and finance. AfterQuery was part of the Winter 2025 batch.

Robotics and autonomous driving

• , the Shanghai-based operator of Hello’s robotaxi business, raised about $100 million at a valuation close to $3 billion. fund led the round. The financing to the 1-year-old company will support a 10,000-GPU computing cluster, AI model development and commercialization of Level 4 autonomous driving.
• , a Sunnyvale, California-based robotics perception company, raised a $165 million Series C at a $1.6 billion valuation, led by . Founded by former and engineers, the 5-year-old company combines custom chips, sensors and spatial software to help robots perceive their surroundings. The financing will accelerate deployments across logistics, manufacturing and inspection applications.

Health insurance

• , a San Francisco-based health benefits company, announced a $200 million Series C at a $2.7 billion valuation. led the financing. It also includes $400 million in secondary financing for existing investors. The 7-year-old company provides a benefits platform using AI to make healthcare more affordable for small and midsize employers. The company services 5,000 businesses.
• , a San Francisco-based health benefits platform, raised a $108 million Series C at a $1 billion valuation. Investors included , , and . The 5-year-old company helps employers provide individualized health budgets for employees to select their own medical plans.

Energy and EV infrastructure

• China-based , a battery-swapping and charging company, agreed to a strategic transaction that gives a 30% stake. Geely will contribute its Yiyi battery-swapping operation and a $95 million investment. The 9-year-old company was valued around $2.4 billion.
• , an Austin-based developer of off-grid power systems for AI data centers, raised a $120 million Series A at a $1 billion valuation, led by . The less than 1-year-old company builds modular systems for renewable energy and battery systems as data-center operators seek access to electricity.

AI applications

• raised $150 million led by , at a valuation just over $2 billion. The 3-year-old company, headquartered in London with offices in Los Angeles and Mumbai, built an enterprise audiovisual content platform for media, advertising, sports and healthcare customers. The financing will support research, commercial expansion and a larger Silicon Valley presence.
• , a New York-based AI ranking and personalization company, raised a $90 million Series B at a $1.44 billion valuation, led by . The 2-year-old company’s software helps enterprises respond to customer behavior in real time, improving the relevance of recommendations.

Cybersecurity

• Rome-based , a cybersecurity company protecting connected devices and autonomous machines, raised $270 million at a $1.7 billion valuation, led by . The financing to the 8-year-old company will support U.S. and Asia-Pacific expansion and development of AI security models.
• Tel Aviv-based , a consumer cybersecurity company, raised $40 million at a $1.1 billion valuation, bringing total funding to $167 million. co-founder joined existing investors including and , among others. The 8-year-old company protects consumers against phishing, scams, malicious websites and AI-generated fraud.

AI models

• Beijing-based , a language-model startup, raised $120 million reaching a valuation of $1.4 billion. Investors include , , and . The less than 1-year-old company raised $400 million across three rounds so far this year, before releasing its first public model.
• , a San Francisco-based developer of open-weight foundation models, announced a $150 million Series B led by , and , valuing the company above $1 billion. The financing will support the 3-year-old company’s Trinity models and products for customizing and operating them.

Manufacturing and construction software

• , an AI company for manufacturing with dual headquarters in Tokyo and Chicago, raised a $114 million Series D at a $1.2 billion valuation, bringing total funding to $234 million. Investors included and . The 9-year-old company’s platform organizes design and procurement and production; the financing will deepen its technology and accelerate North American expansion.
• , a Georgia-based construction software company, secured a growth investment of $250 million led by , valuing it above $1 billion. The 17-year-old company manages construction projects, with the investment supporting its AI capability build out and commercial growth.

Defense technology

• , a Washington, D.C.-based defense company, emerged from stealth with $250 million raised across three rounds at a valuation above $1 billion. The 2-year-old company develops long-range cruise missiles with manufacturing in Texas, Germany and Israel. Backers who have led across three rounds include , , , 1, and .

Food

• , the New York-based parent of consumer food brands David Protein and HallPass, raised a $250 million Series B at a $2.25 billion valuation. and co-led the round. The financing to the 2-year-old company will expand retail distribution, develop new products and support additional brands.

Related ������Ƶ unicorn lists:

• (1,901)
• (666)
• (321)
• (198)
• (119)
• (102)
• (998)
• (547)
• (258)
• (39)
• (489)

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Methodology

The ������Ƶ ������Ƶ is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on ������Ƶ data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. ������Ƶ converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to ������Ƶ long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

������Ƶ startup funding reached $25 billion last quarter, well above the $14 billion invested in Q3 2025 and up slightly from the $24 billion invested in Q2. Quarterly funding was up 77% year over year, per ������Ƶ data.

While the U.K. continued to lead startup funding totals last quarter, Germany and France both posted their strongest quarters since the boom years of 2021 and early 2022. Last quarter’s funding totals were boosted heavily by a $3.5 billion investment in Paris-based , the largest venture round ever for a Europe-based company.

Table of contents

• Billion-dollar fundings
• Venture expands beyond the UK
• Late-stage rise
• Early stage
• Seed
• Looking forward
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Billion-dollar fundings

Four ������Ƶ companies raised billion-dollar-plus fundings, representing close to 40% of the region’s startup capital raised last quarter.

They include Mistral, which also announced its new open-source model Large 4, an LLM it claims outperforms competing open source models on several vectors.

Data center provider raised a convertible note of $3.36 billion that it says it will convert once it goes public, which it has filed plans to do.

Two defense tech startups also raised billion-dollar-plus rounds last quarter: raised a Series E of $1.8 billion, and raised $1.2 billion.

AI drove 75% of ������Ƶ funding this past quarter — totaling $18.8 billion — the highest proportion on record.

Investments in physical tech in Europe in defense, data centers, energy, aerospace and robotics accounted for roughly half of ������Ƶ funding in Q3.

Venture expands beyond the UK

The U.K. led the region’s quarterly funding totals with $7.5 billion even as Germany and France gained market share for venture capital funding in Q3 with $5 billion and $4.8 billion invested, respectively.

The fourth-largest market, Sweden, saw $1.5 billion in venture capital invested while the Netherlands and Spain posted their strongest quarter since the COVID boom years with $1.4 billion and $1.2 billion invested in their startup markets, respectively.

Late-stage rise

A total of $17.3 billion — 70% of Europe’s Q3 venture capital — was invested in late-stage deals in 83 companies.

Outside of the billion-dollar rounds, large late-stage fundings between $400 million to $700 million were raised by Stockholm-based health scanning provider ; Lisbon-based autonomous drone developer ; Spain-based , which offers model compression technology for enterprise AI adoption; Amsterdam-based AI deployment startup ; Bayern-based space transportation company ; and Stockholm-based AI web application builder .

Early stage

Europe’s early-stage funding totaled $5.7 billion into just over 200 companies in Q3, down quarter over quarter and flat year over year.

The largest Series A funding deals, each $200 million or over, were raised by Eindhoven-based AI semiconductor startup and Zürich-based autonomous construction company .

Large Series B rounds were raised by Munich-based fusion energy company and London-based optical computing provider .

Seed

Europe’s seed funding fell quarter over quarter and was flat year over year. Around $2 billion was invested in more than 750 companies at seed stage in Q3.

London-based managed inference company raised the largest seed round at $100 million, followed by Munich-based AI for robotics startup , which raised $55 million.

Looking forward

Europe’s momentum in 2026 continued in Q3, which was the second quarter this year when venture totals topped $20 billion. Those are figures not seen in the region’s startup scene since Q3 2022. Along with growth in AI funding, late-stage funding noticeably increased last quarter with many of the leading rounds sourced across multiple ������Ƶ countries.

Europe represented 16% of global venture capital in Q3, although the true impact of its technology and startups is higher, with many of the region’s startups expanding or moving to the U.S. to capitalize on the rapid growth of AI there.

At the same time, Europe’s ambition to build leading deep-tech companies and meet demand for sovereign AI will be tested in the quarters ahead by its ability to mobilize the substantial capital these businesses need.

Related ������Ƶ queries:

Related reading:

• ������Ƶ Data: Q3 2026 Posted A Record Count Of Billion-Dollar Rounds As The Global AI Race Heats Up
• Reporter’s Notebook: Europe’s Sovereign AI Push Needs Customers As Well As Capital

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from ������Ƶ, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 5, 2026.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. ������Ƶ converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to ������Ƶ long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. ������Ƶ also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. ������Ƶ includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

Illustration:

Funding to private companies has skyrocketed this year, totaling $679 billion in venture funding globally in Q1 through Q3 2026, per ������Ƶ data. That is the highest amount in the first three quarters of any given year.

While global venture funding in Q3 was down 25% quarter over quarter from the $212 billion raised in Q2, it was up 53% year over year from the $104 billion raised in Q3 2025.

��Table of Contents

• Billion-dollar fundings
• US and sectors
• Late-stage funding
• Early-stage funding
• Seed
• Exits: IPOs and M&A
• Robust market
• Methodology
• Glossary of funding terms

Billion-dollar fundings

A notable shift in 2026 has been the number of startups that have raised billion-dollar-plus rounds. An all-time record of 27 companies raised such sizable rounds in Q3 2026, an increase from the previous record, set in Q2, of 16 companies and Q1’s total of 14 companies.

Around a third of all global venture capital raised in Q3 went to those 27 companies. In the two prior quarters, billion-dollar raises pushed total funding to well above historical norms.

No single company raised funding in the tens of billions last quarter. However, eight companies raised funding rounds of $3 billion or more, with frontier labs and data centers leading by company counts for the biggest raises. Of these eight companies, five were founded within the past four years.

The largest funding deals went to and , which each raised $5 billion. Close behind, , , , , and each raised more than $3 billion.

US and sectors

U.S.-based companies continued to raise the dominant share of venture capital with $91 billion invested in American startups, or around 57% of the global total in Q3. The San Francisco Bay Area alone accounted for 24% of global venture investment in the quarter.

AI-driven startups across the stack raised $102 billion, or 64% of global venture capital, down from the two previous quarters, but still 14 percentage points above Q3 2025 global funding.

The realm of physical AI has attracted significant capital in 2026. That continued in Q3 with the aerospace, robotics, data centers, semiconductor and energy sectors each raising $10 billion or more in the quarter.

Late-stage funding

Late-stage venture funding totaled $105 billion in Q3, down 23% from Q2 but up 73% from Q3 2025, ������Ƶ data shows. Funding rounds of $100 million and above accounted for close to 90% of late-stage financings.

Early-stage funding

Early-stage funding totaled $40.6 billion in Q3, up by 25% from a year earlier. The number of companies raising jumbo sized rounds at $100 million and over, represented 50% of early-stage financings.

Seed

Global seed funding totaled $13 billion in Q3, ������Ƶ data shows. Of that, $2.6 billion went to seed rounds of $100 million and over, around 20% of seed financings.

Exits: IPOs and M&A

Q3 was a fairly strong quarter for exits. China dominated on the IPO front for the largest exits�� with semiconductor and robotics listings surging on their first day of trading.

• China-based , developer of DRAM chips, was the largest IPO in Q3, raising�� $8.6 billion at an $85.5 billion value. Its stock surged more than 500%�� on its debut to become the most valuable listed company in the local market.
• The second-largest was Singapore-based fast fashion company listing at a $26.3 billion valuation, well below its 2022 valuation peak of $100 billion. Shein was the one exception that closed its first day around its opening price, after falling by about 10%;
• Shanghai-based AI chipmaker , a competitor to , went public in September, raising $912 million at a valuation of $25.5 billion.
• Milan-based , acquirer of and , raised $1.6 billion on its debut at a value of $18.4 billion.
• Hangzhou-based humanoid robotics company went public raising $905 million debuting at a valuation of $9 billion.

U.S.-based companies, meanwhile, dominated the largest M&A deals.

Semiconductor companies were the largest acquirers in Q3. bid to acquire New York-based open-source AI platform for $12.9 billion. Semiconductor giant announced its intent to acquire ’s , a San Francisco-based builder of models for physical intelligence, for $8.2 billion. The third-largest acquisition was payments provider ’s acquisition of New York-based AI model router for $7.5 billion.

Robust market

Over the past few quarters, larger checks across funding stages have pushed venture investment higher as young AI companies gained traction rapidly. Half of startup capital invested in Q3 went to companies founded since 2022.

Venture funding has also expanded beyond software into physical infrastructure and robotics, reindustrializing economies. And a dynamic seed funding climate for AI-native startups signals continued appetite for the next wave of companies.

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from ������Ƶ, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Oct. 2, 2026.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. ������Ƶ converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to ������Ƶ long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. ������Ƶ also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. ������Ƶ includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

Related reading:

• VCs Pour Billions Into Physical AI As The Next Wave Of AI Investing Takes Shape
• Jumbo-Sized Series A Rounds Are On The Rise

Illustration:

������Ƶ AI-focused startups raised $23 billion in the first half of 2026, up 130% year over year and accounting for 55% of the region’s venture funding, according to a joint ������Ƶ and HumanX . That investment surge is sharpening a question at the heart of the sovereign AI debate: Where should countries concentrate their resources to capture the technology’s economic value and retain control over their data?

But sovereignty does not require owning every layer of the AI stack, according to two executives I spoke with onstage at the conference: founder and CEO and , ’s chief product and technology officer.

Their perspectives from Europe and the United Arab Emirates, respectively, pointed to opportunities in specialized chips and applications and underscored how purchasing decisions, government mandates and access to computing power can determine whether AI ambitions translate into growth.

Five-layered cake

, CEO and president of chip giant , has detailed a “” to deliver AI that includes�� energy, chips, infrastructure, models and applications.

For Del Maffeo, whose company develops chips for inference, the opportunity lies in the semiconductor layer, as more AI processing moves beyond centralized data centers and onto devices.

“Artificial intelligence will expand from cloud computing, from centralized data centers, to devices closer to us in the physical world,” he said. “To enable this, you need specific chips which can run efficiently, at a lower cost, to connect these networks that today are running in the cloud. We are here to solve this problem.”

Five-year-old Axelera AI has two generations of chips it sells to around 600 customers. The company next plans to expand to products for decentralized cloud computing.

AI transformation

Abu Dhabi-based AI71 partners with large organizations and government agencies to help them benefit from AI transformations.

The United Arab Emirates has the largest compute per capita in the world and has a three-month mandate for every government agency to set up agentic processes for its citizens, according to Ghissassi. Energy is abundant and cheap. Over the next two years, the goal is to reach half of every citizen’s interactions with the government with an AI agent, he said.

Competing at the model layer does not make sense, said Ghissassi. He believes there will be two, three or four companies that can afford to be in the race, given the amount of capital required and the fact that it commoditizes very quickly.

The application layer is the one that is really important, for sovereignty where you want to own your data, said Ghissassi, who previously led product development at . “You want to make sure that it stays with you, be it that you’re a government or an enterprise. If you’re giving away your trade secrets and know-how, nobody stops whoever is being a provider to you today, from replacing you.”

In the UAE, “what helps is the mandate, the pace at which things happen, the availability of compute, both in terms of sovereign clouds, or on-prem, or global clouds, and then the amount of capital that is being invested to help transform these companies to benefit from these technologies,” Ghissassi said.

By contrast, Europe struggles as it is a net importer of energy. It has strengths in the semiconductor industry but lacks all the real compute for AI, in neural networks and frontier labs.

“We should not be obsessed with controlling the entire stack,” said Del Maffeo. In Europe we have to create value instead of just paying for a service, he added. “Creating value means creating a wealthy economy.”

Europe’s strengths include its large pools of research talent and its population of 440 million people who can benefit from AI. However, the culture of large businesses purchasing from startups is less established, meaning it doesn’t have the same flywheel for growth seen in the U.S., said Del Maffeo.

“What worries me is that we are a little bit lagging behind, and therefore we are missing this value creation, and this will weaken the economies of Europe,” he said.

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Related reading:

• Europe Posted Its Strongest Venture Funding Quarter In 4 Years As UK Gains, M&A Holds Up

Illustration:

The highest-valued new entrants were China-based humanoid robotics business , valued at more than $6.3 billion; San Jose, California-based photonics company , valued at $5.5 billion; and Palo Alto, California-based AI model platform , and San Francisco’s semiconductor manufacturing startup , both valued at $5 billion.

AI software featured prominently across model training, assistants, agentic and enterprise workflow automation, coding and voice transcription.

Semiconductors was the second-largest sector, with five new unicorns. Robotics and financial services each added three, while data centers, security and energy each added two.

The U.S. accounted for 16 of August’s new unicorns. China followed with four. South Korea, India, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Germany and Turkey each added one. Nigeria and Indonesia also each added one new unicorn — for both, their first new unicorn of the year.

Nine companies exited the ������Ƶ in August, per ������Ƶ data: Three that went public — the most notable being — and six via acquisition, including , and .

New unicorns in August

Here are August’s new unicorn companies:

AI and software

• , a Palo Alto, California-based platform for training, fine-tuning and deploying custom AI models based on proprietary data, announced $1.1 billion in funding led by and . The less-than-1-year-old company, founded by former co-founder , was valued.
• San Francisco-based , an AI assistant that executes personal tasks, raised a $250 million Series B led by and . The 1-year-old company was valued at $2.5 billion.
• Shanghai-based , a builder of agents for digital and physical environments, raised a $220 million seed round led by and . The less-than-1-year-old company was valued at $2 billion. Its founder, , a researcher, left earlier this year.
• San Francisco-based , which builds AI-powered voice-writing and meeting-transcription tools, raised a $280 million Series B led by , who also led its Series A in 2025. The 5-year-old company was valued at $2 billion.
• San Francisco-based , which provides AI-powered code review and change-management tools, raised a $143 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation. and co-led the round. The 3-year-old company said it would commit more than $10 million to keep its tools free for open-source projects over the next year.
• San Francisco-based , which deploys AI agents across calls, email, documents and enterprise systems, raised a $150 million Series C at a $1.2 billion post-money valuation. and led the round. The company is 4 years old, started in logistics and has expanded to insurance, energy, telecommunications and airlines among others and counts 150 enterprise customers.
• Turkey-based , a developer of consumer mobile applications, raised a $50 million Series A led by . The 4-year-old company was valued at $1.25 billion. Its apps include AI chatbot Nova, diagnosing plants with PlantApp, and art generator DaVinci.

Semiconductors

• , a San Jose, California-based developer of photonic interconnects for AI computing infrastructure, raised a $700 million Series C at a $5.5 billion valuation. , , , and led the round. The 2-year-old company is already deployed within data centers.
• raised $400 million in funding led by hedge fund . The 1-year-old company was valued at $5 billion. The San Francisco-based company creates tooling for semiconductor manufacturing and was founded by researchers.
• South Korea-based , which develops edge AI processors for on-device inference, raised about $29 million in the first tranche of its Series D funding from existing investors. The 8-year-old company targeting robotics and electronics was valued at about $2.2 billion.
• Shanghai-based , an AI chip startup for inference, raised a Series A led by local state capital investors and . The 4-year-old company was valued at about $1.5 billion with plans to ship its product in Q4 2026.
• Santa Clara, California-based , which develops low-power silicon and software for AI data centers and physical AI, raised a $110 million Series A led by . The 4-year old company was valued at more than $1 billion.

Robotics

• China-based , which is building the general-purpose IRON humanoid robot, raised more than $900 million in its first outside financing at a post-money valuation exceeding $6.3 billion. led the round, with participation from and support from and Alibaba Group. The company, a subsidiary of public smart electric vehicle company , is 10 years old.
• Singapore-based , which develops robots to operate in real-world environments, raised about $669 million in funding. The 2-year-old company was valued at about $3.3 billion and is set to deploy robots in a Dairy Queen in Shanghai to handle the entire 55-step process of taking orders, preparing the food and handing it to a customer.
• Zurich-based , which develops autonomous technology for heavy construction machinery, raised a $200 million Series A led by . The 4-year-old company was valued at $1 billion and works across multiple construction brands.

Financial services

• Bengaluru-based , a financial-services company spanning payment, lending and insurance, raised $100 million in funding led by . The 7-year-old company was valued at $1.3 billion.
• Berlin-based , a finance AI platform for ������Ƶ mid-sized businesses to�� manage spend, card issuing and expenses, raised a $40 million Series C led by and . The 7-year-old company was valued at around $1.15 billion. The company says it has 5,000 businesses that use the service to give finance teams control.
• Palo Alto, California-based , an AI-native enterprise resource planning platform for accounting, raised a $100 million Series C led by . The 4-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Aerospace and defense

• Los Angeles-based , a manufacturer of autonomous military drones and counter-drone systems, raised a $250 million Series C at a $2.5 billion post-money valuation. and the co-led the round. The company is 3 years old. Neros has contracts with the U.S. military as well as half a dozen allied countries.
• Mountain View, California-based , which builds and operates satellite constellations for national security, civil and commercial customers, raised a $250 million Series C led by . The 5-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Data centers

• Palo Alto, California-based , a vertically integrated AI infrastructure platform, raised a $300 million Series A led by , , and . The less-than-1-year-old company was valued at $2.4 billion. Alongside the equity, Volta secured $5 billion in debt to fund data center buildouts.
• , a full-stack AI infrastructure and neocloud platform, received led by Doha-based broadband provider , which holds a 49% stake. Jakarta-based Zankore is less than 1-year-old and is valued at $1.6 billion. The platform is targeting 1 gigawatt of AI computing capacity.

Security

• San Francisco-based , an AI-native security company that provides autonomous penetration testing, raised a $250 million Series E led by and . The 7-year-old company was valued at $2 billion and is used by 7,000 organizations including defense, Fortune 10, banks and healthcare companies among others.
• Palo Alto, California-based , which provides security for AI agents and third-party applications, raised an $85 million Series D led by . The 9-year-old company was valued at $1.1 billion.

Energy

• China-based , a nuclear fusion company developing small modular reactors, raised about $179 million in seed funding. The 1-year-old company was valued at about $1.5 billion.
• Washington, D.C.-based , which develops software that adjusts AI data-center workloads based on power-grid demands, raised a $150 million Series A at a $1 billion valuation. and co-led the round. The 2-year-old company says the round brings total funding to more than $220 million.

Transportation

• Nigeria-based , a vehicle financing and autonomous fleet management infrastructure, raised a $250 million Series C led by , and . The 7-year-old company was valued at $2.1 billion. It operates a fleet of 42,000 vehicles — both human-driven and autonomous — across 29 cities, with annual recurring revenue of $420 million.��

Critical minerals

• Houston-based , which builds mines and refineries using its MarianaOS software platform, raised a $310 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Web3

• Dubai-based , an AI-enabled stablecoin neobanking platform for cross-border payments and tokenized assets, raised a $68 million Series C led by Tokyo-based at a $1 billion valuation. The 7-year-old company says it processes more than $40 billion in annualized transaction volume.

Related ������Ƶ unicorn lists:

• (1,862)
• (658)
• (276)
• (195)
• (119)
• (102)
• (961)
• (547)
• (254)
• (39)
• (489)

Related reading:

• Global Venture Funding Jumps 122% In August As Streak Of Billion-Dollar Deals Continues
• Which Investors Have Backed The Most 2026 Unicorns?
• 40 Companies Joined The ������Ƶ In July, The Highest Count In 4 Years

Methodology

The ������Ƶ ������Ƶ is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on ������Ƶ data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.��

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.��

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .��

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.��

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. ������Ƶ converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to ������Ƶ long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

Seven companies raised billion-dollar fundings in August, tied with a few months for the year’s second-highest count after July, when 13 companies did the same.

The largest startup funding deal in August went to 13-year-old which raised $5 billion at a $190 billion valuation.

Other companies across a broad range of industries raised billion-dollar-plus rounds, a testament to the strength of the technology sector impacting�� a range of more traditional industries, including physical manufacturing, defense, aerospace and energy. They included defense tech startup ; , which performs custom AI fine-tuning for businesses; low-orbit satellite network ; nuclear energy company ; automated coding provider ; and home battery service .

Notable exits

On the IPO front, Hangzhou, China-based humanoid robotics company went public on Aug. 19 and soared 460% on its first day of trading on the .

The largest M&A news in August was ’s announcement that it aims to acquire open-source AI platform for $12.9 billion. Other notable acquisition news was Milan-based tech aggregator ’ plan to acquire 13-year-old database company for around $1.3 billion.

Big rounds are coming faster

Venture capital continues to concentrate rapidly among a small group of fast-growing companies. Two of August’s billion-dollar recipients illustrate the trend: Databricks added $56 billion to its valuation in just six months, while River AI raised both its seed and Series A rounds this year, amassing a staggering $1.1 billion in early-stage funding.

That accelerated cadence extended across August’s megadeals: Five of the seven billion-dollar funding recipients had last raised capital less than 12 months earlier, including three that closed their previous rounds earlier this year. The numbers underscore how quickly investors are doubling down on companies they believe can become the next generation of technology giants.

Related ������Ƶ queries:

Methodology

The data contained in this report comes directly from ������Ƶ, and is based on reported data. Data is as of Sept. 2, 2026.

Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. ������Ƶ converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to ������Ƶ long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Glossary of funding terms

Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. ������Ƶ also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less.

Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. ������Ƶ includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million.

Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round.

Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.)

Illustration:

On the ������Ƶ ������Ƶ, we track active investors over all time. Here, we look at the investors in the companies that gained horns in the most recent funding cycle to see which firms predominate.

New unicorn counts have picked up significantly year over year. So far this year, 250 companies have joined the board through Aug. 15, up from 2025’s 193 companies. Leading sectors included robotics, AI labs, healthcare and biotech, financial services, AI infrastructure, and AI deployment, among others. Of the companies, 139 (56%) are U.S.-headquartered, and 47 (19%) are from China.

An analysis of ������Ƶ data finds that most of the funding these companies raised came in 2026: a whopping 75% of all funding — $74 billion out of $98 billion. By contrast, 30% of deals took place in 2026, the highest count so far by year, with 329 deals. Nonetheless, most deals occurred in prior years, with seed investments starting in 2012, Series A in 2014, and Series B rounds in 2017, though the pace has picked up since 2024.

The Top 10 most active investors in this cohort by investment count were Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, , , , , , , and .

Y Combinator is the only accelerator on this list and BoxGroup the single seed investor to make the Top 10. (formerly Sequoia Capital China), headquartered in Hong Kong with offices across China, is the notable investor from Asia on this leading list of 29 investors. Private equity firms and are in this leading list, and on the corporate venture capital front and are featured.

Seed portfolio

Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital had the largest seed portfolio counts, with investments of $20 million or less. Seed investor BoxGroup, headquartered in New York, had the third-largest count of seed portfolio companies, a significant achievement since it invests in far fewer companies than Y Combinator and its funds are a fraction of what Sequoia Capital raises.

Also impressive were with five companies at seed, and , Lux Capital and Founders Fund, each with four portfolio investments at seed. Among this cohort, Lux Capital and Founders Fund had the largest crossover, sharing three portfolio companies out of four.

Series A leaders

The most active Series A lead investors were Andreessen Horowitz, with Khosla Ventures and tied with Sequoia Capital at six investments each. Series A investment sizes show a wide range, from $6 million to $500 million. Larger Series A rounds were not dominant but noticeable for many of these firms, except for , Founders Fund and Bessemer Venture Partners.

As funding activity, unicorn creation and valuations accelerated in 2026, the investors with the largest portfolios were those with early-stage access and the resources to continue backing companies as they scale. Established multistage firms dominate the rankings, while only a handful of accelerators, seed specialists, corporate investors, private equity and Asia-based firms break into the leading group.

The next test will be whether this year’s newly minted unicorns can turn rapid capital formation and lofty valuations into durable, category-defining businesses.

Related ������Ƶ queries:

Illustration:

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

is back raising another $5 billion, after it raised that amount eight months ago. The largest fundings also went to an AI neolab, data center and electricity storage, defense, coding and biotech. Let’s take a look.

1. , $5B, data platform: Databricks has surpassed a $7 billion revenue run rate, with more than 80% year-over-year growth in Q2. The San Francisco-based company raised $ 5 billion in a funding round led by with participation from , , and new investor . Databricks was valued at $134 billion back in December 2025 when the company announced it had surpassed a $4.8 billion revenue run rate. From its Series A funding of $13 million in 2013, the 13-year-old company has raised around $25 billion in funding over all time, per ������Ƶ data.

2. , $1.1B, AI reinforcement learning: Founded earlier this year, River AI raised $1.1 billion across its seed and Series A rounds led by and , with strategic investment from and . Its founder, , has been at the center of AI developments at , and over the past decade. The Palo Alto, California-based company seeks to build AI that is personalized and trained directly on what a company or person needs to accomplish, giving the end user control.

3. , $750M, electric grid: Form Energy raised a Series G funding round led by . The Massachusetts-based company builds longer-lasting 100-hour batteries for grid electricity storage. A host of investors participated, including private equity, venture and angels, and infrastructure and climate-focused investors , , , , , , and the .

4. , $250M, defense: Neros Technologies, a defense drone manufacturer and drone interceptor, raised a $250 million Series C led by and . The Los Angeles-based company, founded in 2023, has raised $370 million to date, per . The company announced that by 2028 it will be building 1 million drones per year. It has contracts with the U.S. military and half a dozen allied countries across Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

5. , $143M, AI code review: CodeRabbit, which has developed an open-source AI code review technology used by 150,000 open-source projects and 17,000 customers, according to the company, is on a roll. London-based and Los Angeles’ led its Series C, and the Walnut Creek, California-based company plans to set up a London office based on customer interest across Europe. As coding becomes increasingly automated, code review is critical to determine which projects meet production standards.

6. , $136M, datacenter networking: Point2 Technology, which builds interconnect solutions for AI data centers, raised an extension of its Series B led by Korea-based , including a strategic investment from and participation from existing investor . The San Jose, California-based company raised $136 million in the Series B.

7. , $110M, organ preservation: Bridge to Life, a 21-year-old organ preservation company, raised a $100 million Series C funding led by and . The Illinois-based company is developing an organ viability assessment tool to expand the market and will use the proceeds to extend its VitaSmart technology to U.S. transplant centers.

8. (tied) , $100M, protein therapeutics: Aureka Biotechnologies, an AI-native drug discovery platform, raised $100 million in Series B funding led by . Based in Shanghai and California, the 3-year-old company has raised $200 million to date. Proceeds will go toward training its model with its lab-in-the-loop feedback mechanism.

8. (tied) , $100M, loyalty rewards: PointsKash, a loyalty reward mobile app, raised private equity funding led by . The Florida-based company provides in-store kiosks for cash, loans and rewards.

10. , $90M, biotechnology: Epicrispr Biotechnologies, a developer of genetic medicines, raised a $90 million Series C led by and . The San Francisco-based company develops treatments for neuromuscular disease through modulating genes.

Large non-US deals:

Several startups based outside the U.S. also raised notable rounds this week. They include:

, $400M, automated applications: Lovable raised a $400 million Series C funding led by and , valuing the company at $13.3 billion. The Stockholm-based company claims 900 million visits each month and 60 million projects created. Lovable’s Series B raise in December 2025, co-led by Menlo Ventures, valued the company at $6.6 billion.

, $300M, defense: Cambridge Aerospace, a U.K. defense tech company, raised a $300 million Series C led by . The 2-year-old company raised a $200 million Series B in April led by and . Since its Series B funding, the has committed to purchasing its Skyhammer air defense system to intercept drones and low-speed missiles.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the ������Ƶ database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Aug. 8-14. Although most announced rounds are in the database, there may be a small time lag, as some rounds are reported late in the week.

Illustration:

Leading sectors by count were financial services, robotics, AI orchestration, multimodal AI, energy and the semiconductor industry.

In the past two months, the board added more than $100 billion each month in value from newly minted unicorns. Three companies joined the board at decacorn values. , and together added $49 billion in the past month.

The U.S. counts 19 new unicorn companies, just under half of the newly minted unicorns in July. China, the second-largest country, numbered eight. From the U.K., there were three companies, and from Singapore, two. Lithuania, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Australia, India, Israel and Hong Kong each count one.

Among the newly minted unicorns, 15 were less than 3 years old. And seven companies were more than 10 years old.

So far this year, the count of new unicorns has accelerated. A total of 195 companies joined in H1 this year, already exceeding the total for all of 2025.

New unicorns in July

Here are July’s new unicorn companies:

Financial services

• Singapore-based , an affiliate of the private payments company , raised a $1.2 billion Series A funding round with participation from Ant Group and . Ant International was spun out in 2024 and was valued at $11.2 billion in this recent funding.
• , a digital banking platform for banks and credit unions, raised $115 million in private equity funding led by . The 9-year-old San Ramon, California-based company that supports customer retention and services was valued at $1.6 billion.
• Budapest-based , an auto insurance provider using AI, raised a $23 million Series B funding round led by . The almost 2-year-old company, founded by a Serbian team, was valued at $1.6 billion.�� Ominimo reports $350 million in gross written premiums and is approaching 1 million customers. It operates in Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands and Sweden, and plans to expand across Europe and to the U.S. in 2027.
• , an AI-native private bank for high net worth business owners, raised a $70 million Series B led by . The 4-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• , a membership and savings app for U.S. consumers, raised $65 million in Series D funding led by . The 10-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.2 billion. Surpassing $200 million in net revenue in 2025 from membership and transactional revenue, the company says it is growing 50% year over year and is approaching 1 million members.
• London-based , a savings app which has become a digital wealth management platform, raised a $60 million secondary market transaction led by . The 11-year-old company was valued at $1.1 billion. The secondary sale is to provide liquidity for long-term employees. The company is profitable and has helped 200,000 people buy their first home.

Robotics

• Guangdong-based humanoid robotics company raised $200 million in pre-IPO funding. The 4-year-old company is focused on entertainment, hospitality, and service for humanoid robotics, not manufacturing, with half of its orders coming from outside of China. The company was valued at $2.2 billion.
• Shenzhen-based , a builder of precision tactile sensing technology for robotics, raised $148 million in Series E funding. The 10-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• London-based , a humanoid robotics company for manufacturing, retail and logistics, raised a $152 million Series A funding led by . The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.4 billion and plans to roll out its wheeled beta version robots to customers in Q4. It has also developed a software brain, KinetIQ, to reason and execute complex tasks alongside humans.
• Full-stack physical AI company emerged from stealth with a $300 million seed funding led by and . The less-than-1-year-old Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company focused on manufacturing and logistics was valued at $1.1 billion.
• , an embodied intelligence company, raised a $147 million seed funding round led by and . The less than 1-year-old Nanjing, China-based company is focused on closed-loop learning, building robotics for manufacturing with the ultimate goal of building a general-purpose robot for the home. The company was valued at $1 billion.
• Dexterous hand robotics company raised a $74 million Series A funding led by . The 1-year-old Hangzhou, China-based company was valued at $1 billion.

AI

• Lithuania-based , a public data web scraping service useful for AI applications and agentic AI, raised its first external financing, a $130 million Series A led by . The company reports $350 million in ARR serving 350,000 tech teams. The 11-year-old company was valued at $3.6 billion.
• Spain-based , a compression technology for AI that improves efficiency and cost, whether on device or in the cloud. It raised a $570 million Series C led by , and . The 7-year-old company was valued at $2.3 billion.
• , creator of synthetic users for consumer research, raised a $200 million Series B led by and . The company raised a $100 million Series A five months earlier. The 1-year-old Palo Alto-based company was valued at $2 billion.
• runs a full-stack platform for companies to train models and agents. It raised a $130 million Series A funding led by . The 2-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• , an enterprise infrastructure management platform for AI, raised a $100 million Series D led by . The 7-year-old San Jose, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Multimodal AI

• Beijing-based , a text prompt-to-AI short video startup, raised a $2.8 billion funding round led by , , , , and . The 2-year-old company, a subsidiary of with plans to spin out, was valued at $18 billion.
• , a company that creates 3D visualization from text or image prompts, raised a $400 million Series B funding led by , and . The 5-year-old Sunnyvale, California-based company, used in gaming, 3D printing and design, was valued at $1.5 billion.
• , which provides access to leading models for text, video, image and audio while retaining user privacy, raised a $65 million Series A led by . The service stores communication on a user’s device. The 2-year-old Wyoming-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• Beijing-based , a multimodal model developer, raised a $222 million Series C led by ,, and . The 3-year-old company, used for film, marketing, and social media content creation, was valued at $1 billion.

Energy

• Munich-based nuclear fusion company raised a $470 million Series B led by , , and . The company has offices in Munich, Zurich and Oxford. The 3-year-old company was valued at $2.7 billion.
• a provider of thermal energy storage for data centers, raised a $550 million Series C funding led by and. The 8-year-old San Jose, California-based company was valued at $2.5 billion.
• , a hydrogen-boron fusion company, raised an undisclosed seed round led by , and . The less-than-8-year-old China-based subsidiary of the was valued at $1.6 billion.

Semiconductor

• Israel-based , a fabless semiconductor company building data processing units and chips for data centers and computing systems, raised a $300 million Series E led by . The 9-year-old company was valued at $2.8 billion. The next generation of will be routing via the company’s X2 chip, according to VP of Starlink engineering, .
• Shanghai-based developer of a satellite communication baseband chip for 6G communications, raised an undisclosed amount following a $216 million Series C round earlier this year. The 6-year-old company was valued at around $1.5 billion.
• , a chip company that connects smaller chips to make them more efficient, raised a $145 million Series C led by . The 5-year-old Santa Clara, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Cryptocurrency

• Singapore-based , a regulated app for buying, trading, and spending cryptocurrencies, raised a $400 million corporate round. Led by , this marks the company’s first institutional funding. The 10-year-old company was valued at $20 billion.
• , a U.S. stablecoin digital clearing bank for international financial institutions, raised a $180 million Series B led by . The 4-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Defense

• Former Doge employees founded to provide AI-driven cyber capabilities to the U.S. military. Cathedral raised a $160 million Series A led by and . The less-than-1-year-old Washington, D.C.-based company was valued at $1.4 billion.
• London-based , a maritime defense company, raised a $175 million Series B led by . The 6-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Marketplace

• , a technology platform for service businesses, raised a $44 million Series D led by . The 10-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.2 billion. Genius AI operates in the wellness, beauty and health sectors and is approaching a $200 million revenue run rate.

• , a platform for travel advisers, raised a $60 million Series D led by and . The service has 15,000 travel advisers and has booked more than $3 billion in travel over time. The 5-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Data center

• Mumbai-based , a data center service hosting GPUs, one of the largest GPU compute providers in India, raised $150 million in funding. The 7-year-old subsidiary of the was valued at $3.9 billion.

Insurance

• , an insurance platform for some of the largest e-commerce customers, raised $100 million in funding. The 12-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.9 billion. Its customers include , , , , and , to name a few.

Quantum

• Quantum computing company raised a $300 million Series A led by , and . The less than 1-year-old South Pasadena, California-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.

AI coding

• Autonomous app building startup raised a $130 million Series C led by , and . The 2-year-old Pleasanton, California-based company was valued at $1.5 billion. The company launched a year ago and has enabled non-coders to build applications, with 12 million built on the platform.

Legal

• , an AI legaltech firm that pairs lawyers with agentic AI, raised a $120 million Series C led by . The service is client-oriented, with payments based on outcomes rather than billable hours. The 3-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Security

• , an endpoint security firm for the AI era, emerged from stealth, announcing a $100 million Series B led by , , and . In 2025, ahead of launching out of stealth, Glow raised large seed and Series A rounds. The 1-year-old Palo Alto, California-based firm with offices in Tel Aviv was valued at $1.2 billion.

Wearables

• Hong Kong-based smart glass company raised a $150 million Series B led by and . Founded by ex- engineers, the startup is not camera-based but rather a display that beams information visible to the wearer.�� The 2-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Related ������Ƶ unicorn lists:

• (1,850)
• (644)
• (245)
• (193)
• (117)
• (102)
• (953)
• (546)
• (251)
• (39)
• (491)

Related reading:

• Global New Unicorn Counts In The First Half Of 2026 Have Already Surpassed 2025’s Totals

Methodology

The ������Ƶ ������Ƶ is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on ������Ƶ data. New companies are as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to .

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. ������Ƶ converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to ������Ƶ long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

We spoke with to talk through the firm’s evolution and how it is meeting this AI moment. She is a partner at the firm who relocated to Silicon Valley from Mexico City.

When the firm was founded in 2005, Brazil didn’t yet have a startup ecosystem —��there was no network of founders, no LPs backing VC firms based there, and no follow-on investors. That has changed drastically in the couple of decades since, with the country emerging as LatAm’s startup powerhouse and a place where U.S. investors and tech giants are increasingly courting business.

Brazil is an exceptionally digitally savvy market. It is the for and the third-largest . Its real-time payment rail , created by the , was rolled out in 2020 and is used by more than 90% of adults in the country.

Latin America has also become an important market for U.S. AI labs and technology companies. Monashees recently announced a partnership with called the in which the two companies co-invest up to $2 million in AI-native and deep tech pre-seed or seed-stage startups in Brazil. Its first summit is planned for later this year in San Francisco, where it will gather Latin American startup founders building businesses with AI.

Monashees makes around eight to 10 new investments per year and is finalizing the deployment of its $370 million fund into roughly 35 companies.

The firm opened an office in Mexico City in 2022 and in September 2025 set up an office in San Francisco.

The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Gené Teare: To set this up, tell me about Monashees.

Fabiola �ϳܾ��Գ���ñ�Dz�: Monashees is the pioneer of venture capital in Latin America. It started 20 years ago, in 2005, with the premise that what had happened in Silicon Valley with tech could also happen in LatAm — that many of the structural problems could be solved with tech.

and , Monashees’ co-founders, were crazy enough to believe this could happen, so that’s when they started Monashees. Just to give you a little context, back in the day there was nothing. It really took time for this flywheel to get started, because if you don’t have funding, you don’t have great talent.

Finally, after five years, they managed to crack that. In 2010, you started to have the first wave of tech companies in the region, and Monashees started positioning Brazil on the global tech map.

As a second phase, the team realized that what was happening in the Brazilian ecosystem was also starting to happen in other countries in the region. Great teams were starting to build great companies. That’s when Monashees decided to expand across Latin America and back these teams. That’s when we led ’s seed round, one of the flagship companies of Latin America.

The third wave, which is what we’re focused on right now, is Global LatAm: backing Latin American founders who are building global businesses, regardless of whether they are building in Latin America or globally.

That has also been the rationale for opening an office in San Francisco. In the context of AI, you have many Latin American founders starting businesses from here because you have to be close to the labs and the talent.

We’re early-stage investors. We invest at pre-seed, seed and Series A. Seed and Series A are our sweet spot, and we are lead investors. We’re also generalists. We’re not sector-specific, we’re mostly sector-agnostic.

I see this trend when I talk to a lot of ������Ƶ VCs with earlier-stage investors, establishing a U.S. presence. It seems fairly recent, and it seems to be driven by this AI wave. Do you think it’s the VCs coming here and the founders following, or are the founders coming first and the VCs realizing they need more of a presence here?

�ϳܾ��Գ���ñ�Dz�: I think initially it was mostly founders. Now, it’s a little bit of both; they’re feeding each other.

The reason we started the office in San Francisco is that the pace at which AI evolves is unseen, even compared with other technology paradigms in the past. If you’re not here, it’s very difficult to keep pace and stay up to speed with where the AI frontier is going. You even have a gap with Wall Street, so imagine the gap with Latin America.

If you want to build an AI-native company as a Latin American founder, part of that is coming to San Francisco and Silicon Valley. San Francisco is now the magnet for all of this. It’s highly dense and concentrated. You have to be here to absorb the tools and understand what other people are doing.

I also think it’s super important because founders realize that Silicon Valley is the champions league. In Latin America, you do have great talent, but you don’t know what great looks like if you’ve never worked here.

The reason we opened an office here is to bridge that gap: to help founders be here, see what is happening at the frontier, and understand what the best companies are doing so they can replicate that back in LatAm.

The talent in the region is now sophisticated enough. It has been a 20-year process to get to a point where you have great, ambitious founders who believe they can build global businesses.

You already have success stories like from or from . Founders realize they can build globally.

In the context of AI, many of these global companies have to be based here because you have access to AI talent, but also to funding. Being close to all the Silicon Valley funds is also crucial for them.

I do think several founders are coming here to build, but that also creates some issues. One important thing to note is that many of these founders are building for the Latin American market, where your revenue is in Brazilian reais or Mexican pesos. In terms of headcount, you need to be very careful that you don’t have a U.S. cost basis when your revenue is in Brazilian reais or Mexican pesos.

These very early-stage startups also cannot compete with the big labs here that are paying a lot of money for talent. Right now in San Francisco, finding AI talent is really difficult and it’s very expensive.

I think it’s more about coming here, learning and bringing back the best practices. That’s where the real arbitrage opportunity comes from. You have amazing talent in LatAm, and you can teach them. Now, in the context of AI, you have much better ways to do that and you can operate with a smaller headcount.

That’s the rationale for founders coming here and for us being here as a bridge. We help our portfolio companies stay close to AI innovation, but we also get access to Latin American founders who are building from the U.S.

We hired a researcher for the Monashees team. Andrés [Campero] has a Ph.D. from in AI. He’s one of the disciples of , who is a very renowned researcher. The rationale for having Andrés, who is Mexican, on the team is to help us connect with the research diaspora here in San Francisco. It’s very different to talk about business than it is to talk to researchers.

This is important because most researchers from Latin America don’t stay in Latin America. They come to the U.S. and work at the different universities here. It’s important for us to be connected to where most of the innovation is happening. Andrés also helps us identify the best companies emerging in the region from a technology standpoint.

Of those, how many are coming to the U.S. at the earlier stages? What proportion do you expect to come here?

�ϳܾ��Գ���ñ�Dz�: Some of the companies we’re seeing start in LatAm and then expand to the U.S.

We have a portfolio company called . It’s AI-native, and it develops preventive-maintenance software. The company started in Brazil.

Its customers were global businesses, and those customers started pulling the company into the U.S. Its product was much better than what was available here. The company is now headquartered in Atlanta, so you could say it’s a U.S. company now.

Most of its revenue comes from the U.S. I think examples like that — companies born in LatAm that expand globally — will tend to be around 30% of the portfolio.

Companies we invest in from the U.S., where most of the revenue will be U.S.-based, will probably be around 20%, because we continue to be a LatAm-focused fund. But we’re also going to see more LatAm-born companies coming here.

You mentioned the focus on Latin America, and talent is obviously very difficult to find here in the U.S. right now. For the companies that are based here, do you see them setting up offices in LatAm to attract talent? Are most of them using a hybrid model, or are some completely U.S.-based?

�ϳܾ��Գ���ñ�Dz�: It depends on the stage they’re at. Later-stage companies — think Series C or Series D — tend to have most of their technology teams in Brazil, Argentina or elsewhere in LatAm.

Another example is . It’s headquartered in Salt Lake City, but most of its technology team is in Brazil, in a smaller city called João Pessoa.

The company is building very sophisticated AI infrastructure. It was able to do that because it was very good at hiring a senior team that could teach and transfer knowledge to the local team.

We’re seeing more of that. You start with senior people, senior researchers or senior data scientists in the U.S., while much of the junior team is in LatAm.

Now, with AI, you can have fewer junior people. But you also have talent in Latin America that is strong enough to act as the senior engineers.

What are the standout companies in the Monashees portfolio that you would highlight?

�ϳܾ��Գ���ñ�Dz�: I’ve shared a couple. One is Tractian, the preventive-maintenance software company. The company has been growing. It’s a success story for us because it started in Brazil, and it has proprietary technology. It combines software and hardware, and it owns the patents for its hardware.

Today, it is really conquering the U.S. market. It’s a perfect example of an AI-native company born in Brazil, where the AI lab lives in Brazil, but the company is competing at the global level.

We also have Music.AI, which is in a fun industry. If you’re an amateur musician, its platform allows you to play whatever song you want and play with the instruments in the background. You can play the drums, the flute or whatever you want while having the other instruments behind you. The company has both a B2B and a B2C business. It has more than 50 million users or downloads and is growing very fast. It won iPad App of the Year two years ago. It’s another success story. It is based in Salt Lake City, but has its technology team in Brazil.

We recently invested in a company called . It’s an accelerator, so it’s similar in some ways to what we’re doing with Google. Shiva is trying to capture this new wave of entrepreneurs who might not have pursued entrepreneurship if Shiva and AI didn’t exist. , the founder, is a second-time founder. He was one of the early co-founders of one of our portfolio companies, which later went public. You can think of Shiva as the of Latin America in the sense that it is very community-driven. It is also trying to capture these solopreneurs: companies started by just one person that can go global from day one and have revenue from day one.

I think it’s a super-interesting and very different investment. It speaks to how we’re always trying to keep pace with how the ecosystem is going to evolve, because this ecosystem is also likely to be disrupted by AI.

I can also tell you about some of the companies in the portfolio that are focused specifically on Latin America.

We have a company called . It’s an HR platform. It’s very specific to the Brazilian ecosystem because regulation requires employers to provide certain benefits to employees. Flash managed to build a technology product around that, and now the company is expanding into a full HR platform. It’s one of the flagships of Fund IX. It’s growing very fast, and it has become a flagship company in Latin America. Fintech is one of the largest and most important markets in Latin America.

Another company was actually the first investment I made at Monashees. It’s a payment-orchestration platform called . The company is at the Series B stage. We invested at seed back in the day. It gives an e-commerce company a single integration through which it can manage all of its payment methods. If you’re a multinational company — think about — and you want to enter Brazil, Colombia and Peru, you have to deal with so many payment methods. With Yuno, you have just a single integration. In the context of AI, Yuno has developed a very strong agentic platform that helps with fraud and conversion. Fraud in LatAm is a big issue, and the platform helps companies manage fraud and increase conversion across these marketplaces.

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