From January through August U.S. tech layoffs reached at least 94,046, up 16.8% from 80,486 in the same period of 2025. Interestingly, and unsurprisingly, many of the cuts came as tech companies redirected spending toward AI and restructured operations to reduce costs.

The year started off on a busy note on the layoff front. After job cuts dropped sharply in December 2025 to 5,151, they surged in January to over 20,000. May was particularly brutal. The month drove the year-to-date increase, recording 31,513 layoffs 鈥� including 鈥檚 8,000-job reduction 鈥� the highest monthly count since March 2023, when layoffs reached 36,602.

Recent months indicate a slowdown. Layoffs fell each month after May, reaching 2,347 in August. Overall, June-August 2026 layoffs totaled 19,331, down 16.2% year over year. The decline suggests recent easing, though it is too early to establish a lasting reversal.

Artificial intelligence has become a much more common explanation for layoff decisions, noted , founder of AI was cited in 33% of tech layoff events this year, up from just 1% in 2024. His tracker attributes 92,913 layoffs globally, or 72% of this year鈥檚 total, to AI.

鈥淭here鈥檚 been little evidence that AI is actually replacing the work of the human employees let go,鈥� Lee said of this year鈥檚 largest AI-attributed layoffs. He believes established tech companies are spending heavily on AI and cutting costs elsewhere, hoping to increase productivity with smaller workforces.

Companies cutting

This year, we鈥檝e seen a number of Big Tech and publicly traded companies, as well as startups, make deep cuts.

But interestingly, as with last year, public tech companies have dominated layoff headlines in 2026 so far, led by and Meta.

鈥淏ig companies [have] made up about 87% of everyone laid off in 2026, which is similar to last year, when they made up 85%,鈥� Lee said.

Amazon accounted for 17,388 cuts this year so far through August. Those included a 16,000-worker RIF announcement in January and several smaller subsequent rounds. Meta was next with 10,400 layoffs, including an 8,000-job reduction carried out in May that represented 10% of its workforce.

and recorded the next-largest totals, letting go of 4,800 and 4,760 employees, respectively. , and each recorded 4,000 layoffs, followed by with 3,000, with 2,900 and with 2,600. Notably, the Top 10 list spans a variety of sectors, including cloud computing, social media, payments and enterprise technology.

We should also note that according to reports, 鈥檚 workforce fell by about 21,000 employees in its fiscal year ended May 31, 2026, but the worker count and exact timing for each of聽 those reported cuts was unclear, so we did not include that total in our tracker.

Among privately held companies in the tracker, recorded the largest disclosed total at 1,000, followed by HR software provider with 950 and with 500. Those figures were substantially smaller than the largest public-company reductions, although undisclosed layoff counts limit comparisons between the two groups.

And in early September, reportedly laid off 3,300 workers, or 10% of its workforce.

An AI focus

, of , says AI is affecting jobs in two ways. Some work, including coding, can now be done with fewer people. 鈥淭here are jobs that are literally being replaced by artificial intelligence,鈥� he told 兔子先生传媒 News.

But companies are also changing their priorities. They鈥檙e putting more money into AI and cutting teams working on other parts of the business. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e letting people go from one area of their organization while they might even be hiring in an area that is focused on AI,鈥� Challenger said. That鈥檚 why a company may lay people off and advertise new jobs at the same time.

Tech has announced more job cuts than any other industry this year, Challenger said. Across the U.S. economy, layoffs are down somewhat from last year, though that comparison is skewed by the large number of federal job cuts in 2025. When compared with the period just after the pandemic, when employers struggled to find workers, layoffs remain elevated.

Few companies outside tech have blamed job cuts on AI so far, Challenger said.

It鈥檚 not all negative though, in his view. There’s potential upside for programmers, he said. If AI makes software less expensive to build, companies in other industries might embark on projects they couldn鈥檛 afford before. That could mean new jobs outside tech, though it鈥檚 too early to know whether those jobs will make up for the ones being cut.

Also, it appears that some companies might be regretting their layoff decisions. Amazon is reaching out to eligible former employees about open roles across the company, including in its cloud-computing and AI businesses, according to a聽 report.

Methodology

Layoffs figures are from The 兔子先生传媒 Tech Layoffs Tracker, where we record reported job cuts at U.S. tech employers. The tracker includes layoffs conducted by U.S.-based companies or those with a strong U.S. presence 鈥� both privately and publicly traded 鈥� and is updated at least bi-weekly. Layoff and workforce figures are best estimates based on reporting. Actual layoff figures are likely much higher than reported as many companies do not disclose the number of jobs cut when announcing layoffs. For more about our methodology for tracking layoffs, refer to the tracker鈥檚 methodology section.

Related reading:

• The 兔子先生传媒 Tech Layoffs Tracker

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So far this year, companies in the space have raised around $2 billion in seed- through growth-stage funding. That’s already ahead of the 2025 full-year total, driven in large part by big rounds for companies at the intersection of AI and gaming.

Lead fundraisers

A few particularly large rounds contributed an outsized share to this year鈥檚 funding tally.

Sunnyvale, California-based , a developer of foundation models for AI-powered 3D generation, was the largest fundraiser, pulling in $400 million in a July Series B at a $1.5 billion valuation. While not a pure-play gaming company, Meshy highlights gaming as a core use case for its 3D AI agent.

, developer of a platform for training AI models, was another investor favorite, pulling in $300 million. Like Meshy, Israel-based Decart is not an AI pure-play; it鈥檚 also known for a video simulation technology pitched as compelling for game development.

We also saw plenty of pure gaming startups in the largest-round list, including motion-based family game developer , which closed on $150 million last week, and Turkish mobile gaming company , which picked up $70 million in May. Below, we highlight nine standout funding recipients this year.

Investors are also scaling up

Gaming-focused venture investors are also attracting fresh capital. One of the larger raises closed last month, with San Francisco-based picking up $250 million for its fourth flagship fund. The closing follows a string of successful investments, including a lead seed stake in viral puzzle game maker , which later exited at a $5 billion valuation.

Makers Fund has continued to invest actively, taking part in at least 10 known rounds this year, per 兔子先生传媒 data. This includes financings for high-profile startups such as , the sports betting platform that recently drew attention for a controversial ad campaign.

A few months earlier, announced a fresh raise of its own, securing $100 million for a fund focused on indie games. The firm鈥檚 Special Opportunities Fund intends to provide financing in exchange for a share of a game鈥檚 revenue, in what it hopes will be a more appealing investment structure for indie studios.

The beginning of an up cycle?

Overall, while gaming startup investment remains far below the peaks seen a few years ago, the substantial year-over-year gains we鈥檙e seeing look encouraging. The direction of funding charts certainly points to an upturn still early in the making.

Related 兔子先生传媒 query:

Related reading:

• Gaming Startup Funding Levels Down Further In 2025

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, most of the largest U.S. startup funding rounds centered around the sector one would suspect: artificial intelligence. This was true for the week鈥檚 largest venture financing, a $1.5 billion Series F for AI inference technology provider , as well as a majority of rounds in the Top 10. Beyond that, the next-biggest area for startup funding was biotech.

1. , $1.5B, AI inference technology: Baseten, a provider of systems software to run AI applications workloads, raised $1.5 billion in Series F funding, its fourth fundraise in 18 months. , , , and co-led the round, which set a $13 billion valuation for the San Francisco-based company.

2. , $1B, digital marketing: AppsFlyer, a San Francisco-based provider of data analytics with digital marketing as a core use case, reportedly secured more than $1 billion in a Series E funding round at a post-money valuation of $2.7 billion. Backers reportedly include , , and .

3. , $650M, AI inference technology: San Francisco-based Groq closed on $650 million in new funding led by and that it says will be used to scale its AI inference cloud technology and infrastructure. The investment comes just over six months after an acquihire-type transaction in which hired away its founder and key team members and licensed its technology.

4. , $330M, ophthalmic therapies: Ollin Biosciences, a developer of therapies for vision-threatening diseases, picked up $330 million in Series B funding. and led the financing for the Austin-based company.

5. , $320M, foundational AI: General Intuition, developer of a foundational AI model based on gameplay, secured $320 million in Series A funding at a $2.3 billion valuation. led the financing for the New York-based company, while backers including and participated.

6. , $250M, government software: Peregrine Technologies, provider of a platform used by public safety agencies and other government entities, secured $250 million in Series D financing. , , , , and led the financing, which set a $6.8 billion valuation for the San Francisco-based company.

7. (tied) , $200M, risk intelligence: Palo Alto, California-based Quantifind, developer of a risk intelligence platform for financial crime detection and national security operations, closed on $200 million in growth financing led by .

7. (tied) , $200M, foundational AI: San Francisco-based Mirendil, a frontier lab building systems that excel at AI R&D, says it raised a seed round of $200 million led by and . The startup also counts as a backer.

9. (tied) , $190M, AI infrastructure: AI networking infrastructure startup Upscale AI raised $190 million in Series A extension funding, bringing total financing to $500 million. led the round, which set a $2 billion valuation for the Santa Clara, California-based company.

9. (tied) , $190M, biotech: San Francisco-based Osanni Bio, a therapeutics platform focused on ophthalmic therapies and other treatments, secured $190 million in Series B funding led by .

Large non-US deals:

The week also brought some large European rounds:

, $569M, defense tech: Berlin-based defense tech startup Stark reportedly raised $569 million in a financing led by and .

, $546M, insurance: Paris-based health insurance startup Alan secured $460 million in new investment in primary and secondary equity led by .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the 兔子先生传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of June 18-26. 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:

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 was not an exceptionally busy one for large funding deals, though we saw sizable rounds in a lively mix of sectors ranging from AI to fintech to quantum computing and cybersecurity. The biggest raise was for AI world-model developer, which secured a $310 million Series B. Venture investors also put money into AI infrastructure and AI models for biotech.

1. , $310M, artificial intelligence: Menlo Park, California-based Odyssey raised $310 million at a $1.45 billion valuation in a Series B round led by . Other investors included ,,,, and . Odyssey develops AI world models that create multimodal simulations of real-world environments. The startup has now raised $337 million in funding to date, .

2. , $140M, fintech: New York-based Chronograph secured a $140 million private equity round led by . The company provides portfolio monitoring, reporting and diligence software for private capital investors, an increasingly important market as private assets continue to grow. The new raise, which it describes as growth capital, brings its total funding to date to $160 million, according to .

3. (tied) , $100M, AI infrastructure: Boulder, Colorado-based Hydra Host raised a massive $100 million Series A led by . A of other investors joined, including ,, , and . The company operates a bare-metal GPU platform that connects customers to distributed AI computing infrastructure. With the latest investment, it has raised just under $119 million to date.

3. (tied) , $100M, cybersecurity: Startups that promise to protect companies in the AI era are also raising massive sums right out of the gate. This week, Santa Clara, California-based Ent.AI emerged from stealth and said it has raised $100 million in seed funding led by. Other investors included,, 1,, and. The company, founded by former executives and members of the Security Copilot team, offers an AI-powered workspace security platform that it says can analyze user and AI-agent behavior in real time to proactively prevent cyber threats.

3. (tied) , $100M, cybersecurity, defense: Arlington, Virginia-based Twenty Technologies secured a $100 million Series B at a $1 billion valuation. The round was led by, with participation from, and. The company develops AI-enabled cyber warfare systems for the U.S. military and intelligence community, helping automate and accelerate offensive cyber operations at scale. Founded by former cyber operators and defense technologists, Twenty Technologies has now raised $138 million to date,. It鈥檚 part of a growing wave of venture-backed startups building software for military and national security purposes.

3. (tied) , $100M, quantum computing: Berkeley, California-based Atom Computing raised a $100 million Series C led by that brings its total private investment to date to just over $191 million, . and also backed its latest round. Along with the venture money, Atom also received a $100 million Letter of Intent from the under the CHIPS and Science Act that gives the startup additional public backing in exchange for a minority government stake. The company develops neutral-atom quantum computers, one of several competing architectures seeking to commercialize quantum computing. It is one of several quantum startups to receive sizable funding deals this year, following a record-breaking venture investment year for the sector in 2025.

7. , $65M, biotechnology: Watertown, Massachusetts-based Triveni Bio raised a $65 million Series C co-led by and. Additional participation came from. The company develops antibody-based therapeutics for immunological and inflammatory diseases. It has now raised $272 million total from investors, .

8. (tied) , $52M, semiconductor infrastructure: Menlo Park, California-based AttoTude secured a $52 million Series C led by. Other investors included ,,,, 2, and. The startup develops high-speed interconnect technology for AI and hyperscale data centers and has raised $142 million to date, according to . It comes amid robust funding for semiconductor startups this year.

8. (tied) , $52M, digital media: Beverly Hills, California-based Richard Roths Media raised a $52 million venture round led by . The company says it delivered AI-driven marketing and advertising services for 鈥渉igh trust鈥� industries such as banking, law and healthcare. The investment appears to be its first outside capital, per 兔子先生传媒.

10. (tied) , $50M, artificial intelligence: San Francisco-based Bland AI raised a $50 million Series C led by . The of other investors includes , , founder , and others. The company develops AI-powered voice agents that automate inbound and outbound phone conversations for enterprises, a category that has seen growing adoption as businesses look to replace traditional call-center workflows. It has raised $106 million to date, according to .

10. (tied) , $50M, fintech: Brooklyn-based Interchecks secured a $50 million Series C led by,, and. The company operates a payments platform that allows businesses to manage deposits and payouts through a single API, reflecting continued investor interest in infrastructure that simplifies financial operations. It has now raised just under $79 million to date.

10. (tied) , $50M, artificial intelligence, biotechnology: Menlo Park, California-based Radical Numerics emerged from stealth and said it has raised a $50 million seed round led by, with participation from , and . The startup is developing AI models designed to simulate and predict biological systems, with the goal of accelerating drug discovery and advancing precision medicine.

Large non-US deals:

• The largest startup deal outside of the U.S. this week was very large indeed, and also very unusual. , the Chinese AI chatbot startup that briefly roiled public AI-related stocks in early 2025, reportedly took its first outside financing, worth roughly $7.4 billion. The Series A deal, however, comes with a lot of atypical caveats, notably that investors in the deal didn鈥檛 actually receive a stake in DeepSeek, but rather in an LLC controlled by founder , per . Those investors also reportedly face a five-year lockup and receive no voting rights.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the 兔子先生传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of June 13-18. 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:

When I was a child growing up in Japan, Dragon Ball was 鈥渃ontraband.鈥� My parents were unhappy about me reading manga for hours every day. Teachers confiscated manga magazines at school. But I was fascinated by a universe created from the pure imagination of a single person that went on to shape the aesthetic consciousness of more humans than almost any artist of the twentieth century.

Japan didn’t build Dragon Ball. Akira Toriyama did.

From One Piece, Slam Dunk and Hello Kitty characters to , and , each traces back to a singular, obsessive individual who looked, by Japanese social standards, like a weird outcast.

The country globally perceived as the ultimate collectivist society made its greatest contributions to the world through lone visionaries building what no committee would have approved.

What makes this pattern remarkable is what accumulates underneath it. Each obsessive builder, over decades, pulled behind them layers of precision craft, knowledge and discipline that no bureaucracy could have planned.

Japan’s extraordinary concentration of underleveraged assets, from precision manufacturing expertise, materials science technology, longevity and gastronomical research to a generational cultural content library, is the sediment left by people society once called misfits.

The vault is opening

The global anime market was only 30 years ago and to hit around $88.5 billion by 2033, growing annually at more than 9%. Overseas anime revenue and accounting for 56% of total sales 鈥� confirming that international markets now outweigh Japan’s domestic earnings.

Sources: AJA Industry Reports, Grand View Research, Fortune Business Insights.

has disclosed that more than 50% of its 300 million global members watch anime. Viewership on the platform has tripled over five years, with anime content watched more than 1 billion times in 2024 alone. Naruto, a manga serialization that began in 1999, logged 330 million hours watched on Netflix in the second half of 2024 alone. Out of the top 10 global franchises, five are Japan-originated.

That is critical social infrastructure.

Note: Some other rankings instead have Mario, Harry Potter and/or Sh艒nen Jump, but generally Japan-originated IP accounts for half.

The convergence nobody is pricing

At the same time, there is a louder conversation happening in Japan.

The nation is rearming. Its defense budget has nearly doubled in three years, exceeding for the first time the symbolic 2% of GDP threshold. Under a five-year Defense Buildup Program through 2027, Japan has committed 楼43 trillion (~$275 billion) to defense-related spending.

Globally, VC investment in defense-related startups totaled $7.7 billion in 2025, 兔子先生传媒 data shows, a record high.

Most observers treat this as a separate story. To me, it is not.

Japan’s manufacturing edge in silicon wafers, photoresists, specialty ceramics, industrial robots, optics and sensors is the same precision culture that made watches accurate to the second and frames hand-painted with obsessive fidelity. The outcast engineers who spent careers perfecting micron-level tolerances for consumer electronics built capabilities that now happen to matter enormously in a world consuming autonomous, high-precision munitions at industrial scale.

The creative and the industrial share the same genealogy: a Japanese individual, largely ignored, building something to an extreme that no one asked for.

This convergence of Japan鈥檚 technological prowess and cultural impact is what makes the country鈥檚 opportunity genuinely unusual. IP that a teenager in Jakarta, Riyadh, Paris or Lagos carries emotionally,聽 and precision hardware that only a handful of countries on earth can actually produce, originate from the same national psychology.

One crosses geopolitical lines. The other determines them. Japan鈥檚 soft infrastructure and hard capability are rooted in the same stubborn, misfit tradition.

Manufacturing advantage is learnable. The history of industrial development is a history of production methods moving across geographies, in the past over decades, increasingly over months. Competitors can close the gap.

What is harder to replicate is the cultural depth. A franchise relationship formed in childhood does not transfer by policy or investment. , built by a man who spent years mapping insects on foot and wanted to share that obsession with other children, now lives inside the emotional architecture of an entire global generation.

The window is real, and it will not stay open for long

Wars are hard and exhausting. People do not stop wanting to be moved, amused and alive. If anything, that appetite sharpens during geopolitical turmoil. The world increasingly demands the safety that precision manufacturing enables and the meaning that great storytelling provides.

Japan offers both, not by strategic design, but because its most consequential builders were, for a long time, left alone to be strange.

The assets exist. The global demand is accelerating. What Japan is missing is the cross-border fluency 鈥� legal, cultural and financial 鈥� needed to connect them at the speed the moment requires in the age of AI.

The world is finally ready to pay for what remarkable, overlooked individuals in Japan have quietly been building for decades. The question is whether Japan will be ready to let them and if so, how it can capitalize on its valuable assets quickly enough.

is a seasoned investor, serial entrepreneur and attorney with 25 years of experience bridging law and global business. He currently serves as the inaugural managing director of Japan, where he leads one of the world鈥檚 most active startup accelerator programs. He also serves as a senior adviser at , a U.S. and Canada-based hardtech venture capital firm, and as a venture partner at , an innovation advisory firm. An active angel investor, he has backed more than 50 startups, including several unicorns, and founded , an international angel network connecting investors across Japan, the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. His track record also includes co-founding three venture-backed startups. Previously, Shirato spent a decade at global law firms across New York, Toronto, Abu Dhabi/Dubai, Singapore and Tokyo, and before that, held strategic roles as a management consultant at and as a trade negotiator at . He holds a law degree from the , an MBA from the and , and a bachelor鈥檚 degree in international law and economics from the .

Photo by聽听辞苍听

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.

In insecure times, security looks like an appealing sector for investment. That鈥檚 one interpretation of this week鈥檚 tally of the largest startup funding rounds.

The size of the largest U.S. deals was smaller than in recent weeks, and heavily featured cybersecurity- and privacy-focused startups. This includes the week鈥檚 biggest round 鈥� a $375 million Series B for consumer privacy and security platform . Other areas that attracted good-sized financings included AI infrastructure, biotech, healthcare, and robotics.

1. , $375M, privacy: Cloaked, a provider of consumer privacy and security tools, raised $375 million in Series B funding led by and . Founded in 2020, the Massachusetts-based company sells monthly subscriptions for individuals and families.

2. , $143M, AI infrastructure: Frore Systems, a developer of integrated cooling architecture for AI computing and networking hardware, announced that it closed on $143 million in Series D funding. led the financing, which set a $1.64 billion valuation for the 8-year-old, San Jose-based company.

3. (tied) , $120M, cybersecurity: Seattle-based XBow, a provider of autonomous security testing technology, picked up $120 million in Series C funding. and led the round, which values the 2-year-old company at over $1 billion.

3. (tied) , $120M, cybersecurity: Oasis Security, a developer of identify security tools with a focus on AI agents, secured $120 million in a funding round backed by , , and . The 4-year-old company, which is headquartered in聽 New York and has a presence in Israel, has raised $195 million to date, per 兔子先生传媒 data.

5. (tied) , $100M, medical devices: Imperative Care, a medical device company focused on treatment for stroke and vascular diseases caused by blood clot formation, secured $100 million in convertible note financing. and led the investment for the Campbell, California-based company.

5. (tied) , $100M, social media: Seattle-based social network Bluesky this week that it raised a previously unannounced $100 million Series B round that closed last spring, led by .

5. (tied) , $100M, privacy and security: Cape, a recently launched privacy-focused mobile network, landed $100 million in Series C funding. and led the financing, which set a $900 million valuation for the Arlington, Virginia-based company.

8. , $80M, healthcare AI: Latent, an AI platform aimed at helping move patients from clinical decision to therapy, picked up $80 million in a Series A round. and led the financing for the San Francisco-based company.

9. , $77M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Crossbow Therapeutics, a biotech startup focused on developing new antibody therapies to treat a broad range of cancers, raised $77 million in Series B funding. and led the round, which will support a Phase 1 clinical trial of the company鈥檚 lead program.

10. , $52M, robotics: RoboForce, a startup focused on developing AI-enabled robot labor for industrial environments, said it $52 million in fresh funding, bringing its total raise to $67 million. led the financing for the Milpitas, California-based company.

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the 兔子先生传媒 database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of March 14-20. 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:

For venture firms, landing early investments in these companies is one of the clearest signals of long-term performance. An analysis of 兔子先生传媒 data shows and once again dominated the latest unicorn cohort, backing the most deals in companies that reached billion-dollar valuations in 2025.

But 兔子先生传媒 data also highlights a set of rising investors 鈥� including , 1, , 2听补苍诲 鈥� that appear to be gaining ground in the race to fund the next wave of category leaders.

Unicorns advance

Last year was a strong one for new unicorns 鈥� well above the post-pandemic lull and slightly ahead of pre-pandemic norms. The pace of new unicorn creation also picked up each quarter in 2025 and has shown no signs of slowing in 2026, per 兔子先生传媒 data.

Trending investors

AI-native companies accounted for 47 of last year鈥檚 new unicorns, or 25% of the total, and that percentage seems likely to grow in 2026 as companies in that sector continue to draw significant investment.

Notably, nearly half of the new unicorns are also very young: 94 of them are less than 5 years old.

The most-active investors in terms of deal count in last year鈥檚 new unicorn class were two VC heavyweights: Sequoia and a16z, which made 51 investments across 21 and 20 companies, respectively.

Notable investments for Sequoia 鈥� where the firm led early at seed or Series A rounds and continued to back later rounds 鈥� include , a clinician-focused medical AI platform, prediction markets platform , and frontier intelligence lab .

For Andreessen, three of its most-notable investments were for automated coding platform , health customer support service , and , which provides AI for customer support.

Following those two firms, was a close third with 49 investments across 23 companies, which was the highest count of companies for an investor in the unicorn class. Its聽 investments include trucking insurance startup , , an expert training data platform for AI, and , a frontier lab for visual content.

, and rounded out the leading six unicorn investors of 2025, with 37, 36 and 34 deals, respectively. Portfolio companies where these firms led early and kept investing include:

• Accel: (VPN network provider), (AI-powered presentations) and (visual website design platform).
• Y Combinator: (app development platform), (legal AI research service) and聽 (industrial inspections).
• Lightspeed: (commercial trucking insurance), (AI for large enterprises) and for (agentic AI).

Rounding out the top 10 were with 28 investments, seed investor 3听补苍诲 growth investor , each with 23 and 22 deals, respectively.

Ribbit Capital and Felicis shared the top 10 spot, each with 20 deals.

Newer entrants

What’s compelling is not just the investors with a track record of backing formidable companies, but those that have climbed the ranks by identifying the next wave early.

The investors in the 2025 class of billion-dollar startups include quite a few firms who were not in the overall top 20 investors for current private unicorn companies.

兔子先生传媒 data shows Redpoint, and moved up from the top 30 while Ribbit Capital, Felicis and 8VC made their move from the top 50.

, the single corporate investor on this list, and both moved up from the top 60.

vaulted up to the top 20 from the 175th-ranked investor slot in current unicorns. Its thesis is to invest in technical founders in applications, models, tools and infrastructure, and includes video and image generator , customer data platform , and workflow documentation platform .

Higher values, faster cycles

In 2025, The 兔子先生传媒 兔子先生传媒 expanded in both company count and total value as cloud and AI continued to unlock new opportunities. The leading companies have decisively separated from the pack, with billions in revenue and a strong runway.

The race to back the next generation of companies defining new opportunities has accelerated, but markets are moving faster than ever. Cutting-edge companies in today’s market risk being taken over by AI developments which erode their advantage and wipe away their lead.

Investors who want to back the next market winners need to keep investing.

Related 兔子先生传媒 unicorn lists:

• (1,712)
• (604)
• (68)
• (187)
• (117)
• (102)
• (884)
• (501)
• (230)
• (38)
• (470)

Related reading:

• 兔子先生传媒 Data: The AI Boom Has Drastically Changed Who鈥檚 Funding The Hottest Companies In 2025 Vs. 2021
• Hottest Deals In Tech Push 兔子先生传媒 兔子先生传媒 Toward $7T In Value
• What We Learned From 6 Active AI Investors Backing Startups Across The Stack
• Global Venture Funding In 2025 Surged As Startup Deals And Valuations Set All-Time Records

Methodology

The 兔子先生传媒 兔子先生传媒 is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on 兔子先生传媒 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 鈥� such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options 鈥� 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.

Deal counts reported here reflect deals disclosed in 兔子先生传媒. 兔子先生传媒, like all databases of private-market transactions, has a documented pattern of reporting delays. It can sometimes take between weeks and months for some rounds to be announced publicly and subsequently get added to 兔子先生传媒. As data is added to 兔子先生传媒 over time, some of the numbers in this report may shift.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. 兔子先生传媒 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 兔子先生传媒 long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

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This time around, given the excitement around artificial intelligence, we honed in exclusively on AI-focused startups. The goal was to pick out a few themes that appear to be resonating.

Turns out, the hard part was narrowing it down. Investors poured over $9 billion into global AI-focused seed rounds over the past six months, per 兔子先生传媒 data. Areas they favored include cybersecurity, multimedia AI, robotics and desk work automation.

Below, we look at these seed hotspots in greater detail.

No. 1: Cybersecurity

The intersection of AI and cybersecurity has two main areas of interest. One is tools that use AI to do established security tasks more efficiently and effectively. The other is applications aimed at security issues that AI itself itself brings to the fore, such as tracking and verifying autonomous agents.

Put together, it adds up to a well-funded sector for seed, with more than $400 million invested at this stage in the past six months. Using 兔子先生传媒 , we put together a sample list of eight AI and security-focused startups that raised some of the more significant recent seed rounds.

Silicon Valley-based , a stealth startup, picked up one of the bigger rounds for tools using AI to automate security testing and identify vulnerabilities that hackers could use AI to exploit. Another standout was identity management startup .

No. 2: Robotics and drones

Robotics features frequently in our roundups of seed trends, and this time is no exception.

Per 兔子先生传媒 data, investors poured more than $850 million into seed rounds for AI-enabled robotics and drone startups over the past six months. It鈥檚 a geographically diversified lineup, with many of the largest rounds going to China-based startups.

To illustrate, we used 兔子先生传媒 to put together a list of seven recently funded companies from multiple countries.

Per 兔子先生传媒 data, the largest recent seed funding recipient is , a Chinese company developing a universal humanoid robot that can do household work. Another high-profile round went to , a spin-out of EV maker that is focused on AI-powered industrial robots.

No. 3: Multimedia and content creation tools for AI

Seed-stage startups are also innovating around how to better incorporate more language and multimedia features in AI offerings, including audio, translation and video.

To demonstrate, we used 兔子先生传媒 to assemble a list of six companies in these areas that raised sizable seed financings in the past few months.

The biggest round on our list went to Paris-based , which picked up $70 million in initial funding in December to scale audio language AI models designed to deliver voice with ultra-low latency. Others are moving quickly up the funding ladder.

San Francisco-based , developer of an API for image, video and audio generation, raised a $13 million seed round in September and a $50 million Series A in December.

No. 4: Automating niche desk work

The notion that AI tools can perform a lot of tedious screen-facing work is now fully embedded in the public consciousness. In addition, many earlier pioneers in bringing these tools to market are already well-established unicorns, including AI legal tech company and clinical note-taking platform .

But it鈥檚 not game over for newly launched startups that want to play in this space. Of late, we鈥檙e seeing seed funding to various ventures around this theme, with a particular focus on upstarts taking on niches within the vast realm of traditional deskwork. This includes areas like claims processing, procurement, healthcare call centers and building plan review.

To illustrate, we aggregated a sample of 10 companies that raised seed investment in the past six months with $10 million or more in total funding.

, a New York-based insurtech startup that uses AI to do what its name suggests, is the most heavily funded on our list, securing a $13.3 million seed round in October. Another big round that month was a $10 million seed financing for , an AI-enabled structural engineering startup that reviews building plans to enable faster permitting.

Big picture: More things we don鈥檛 pay attention to get automated

One of the intriguing things about this particular AI seed-funding data dive is that it didn鈥檛 provide many startups that triggered an immediate 鈥淚 want that鈥� reaction. For the most part, it wasn鈥檛 a highly consumer-facing sample set. To the extent upstarts are disrupting established spaces, it was in areas the average person doesn鈥檛 think about much, like healthcare recordkeeping or next-gen security. So efficiency gains will likely be more apparent for enterprises than end users.

There are some exceptions, of course, like household robots. But these aren鈥檛 innovations likely to make it into our shopping carts anytime soon.

Related 兔子先生传媒 lists:

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• Seed Funding In 2025 Broke Records Around Big Rounds And AI, With US Far In The Lead
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And underlining the pace at which some startups are now sprinting to billion-dollar-plus valuations, four of the new unicorns are less than a year old.

In exit news, 9-year-old fintech unicorn was acquired by for $5.2 billion. That鈥檚 well below its January 2022 valuation of $12.3 billion but still marks a win for earlier investors seeking liquidity.

Of the 31 companies that joined the board, 23 are U.S.-based and two hail from Canada. Germany, France, Belgium, Israel, Japan and India each added one new unicorn to the board last month.

Among sectors, AI and AI infrastructure contributed the most new unicorns, totaling nine from those two areas. The next-leading sectors, with three new unicorns each, were manufacturing and security propelled by AI. AI was also a major contributor to new unicorns in the semiconductor, defense and autonomous driving sectors.

The largest funding last month for a unicorn company was $20 billion to 鈥檚 at an . Within a month of that funding, xAI in early February announced a merger with another Musk-led company, rocketmaker .

11 exits

Brex鈥檚 acquisition by Capital One was the largest of the four M&A deals for unicorn-valued companies in January.

On the IPO side, seven companies went public, the most high-profile of which were and , both foundation AI model companies based in China.

Here are January鈥檚 newly minted unicorns.

AI

• , an AI research lab focused on human collaboration, raised a $480 million seed funding led by and 1. The less than 1-year-old Redwood City, California-based company was valued at $4.5 billion.
• , an AI scientific research lab, raised a $180 million seed round led by , and . The less than 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• AI evaluation platform raised a $150 million Series A led by 2听补苍诲 . The less than 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.7 billion.
• Voice AI startup raised a $143 million Series C led by France-based . The 10-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion. As part of its announcement, Deepgram disclosed the acquisition of , a voice AI startup for restaurants and drive-thru ordering.
• , an infrastructure company for voice AI, raised a $100 million Series C led by . The 5-year-old San Jose, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

AI infrastructure

• , an AI networking company, raised a $200 million Series A led by , and . The 1-year-old Santa Clara, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• GPU marketplace raised a $150 million Series B led by . The 2-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.
• , for secure AI run locally on devices, raised a Series A extension funding of an undisclosed sum. The 6-year-old Austin-based company was valued at $2.5 billion.
• , which manages a GPU marketplace, raised a Series C led by . The 6-year-old company was founded in Lithuania and is now headquartered in Miami. It was valued at $1 billion.

Manufacturing

• , a builder of factories for defense and the aerospace industry, raised a $131 million private equity funding led by . The 5-year-old Hawthorne, California-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.
• , a developer of no-code applications for manufacturing, raised a $120 million Series D led by . The 11-year-old Somerville, Massachusetts-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.
• 惭辞苍迟谤茅补濒-产补蝉别诲 , a manufacturing automation company utilizing modular robotics, raised a $90 million Series D led by . The 9-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Security

• , provider of security for cloud services in real time to protect from hackers, raised a $250 million Series B led by . The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• Tel Aviv-based , an AI security platform that integrates with existing security platforms to provide context on incidents, raised a $140 million Series D led by . The 6-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• Belgium-based , a developer-oriented security platform, raised a $60 million Series B led by . The 3-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Semiconductor

• , an AI chip developer to run transformer models, raised a reported $500 million funding led by . The 3-year-old Cupertino, California-based company was valued at $5 billion.
• , an AI chip design company, raised a $300 million Series A led by . The less than 1-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $4 billion.

Cryptocurrency

• Stablecoin payments platform raised a $250 million Series C led by . The 4-year-old New York-based company was valued at $2 billion.
• Crypto payments network raised a $75 million Series C led by . The 5-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Healthcare

• Maternity healthcare provider, raised a $92 million Series C led by Stripes. The 4-year-old New York-based company with plans to expand healthcare services to women and children was valued at $1.7 billion.
• , a co-ordination platform for medications across doctors, pharmacies and patients, raised a Series B led by . The 3-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Defense

• Paris-based , an autonomous drone maker, raised a $200 million Series B led by aircraft manufacturer . The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.4 billion.
• , a builder of secure software for the defense industry, raised a $136 million Series B led by . The 4-year-old Colorado-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Fintech

• Tokyo-based brokerage infrastructure provider raised a $150 million Series D led by . The 11-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• India-based , a payment infrastructure provider, raised a $50 million Series D led by . The 13-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Fitness

• , an owner of physical fitness brands and the parent of , raised a $785 million private equity financing led by . As part of the transaction it announced a merger with . The San Luis Obispo, California-based company was valued at $7.5 billion.

Autonomous Driving

• Toronto-based , a self-driving technology company, raised a $750 million Series C led by and ,valuing it at $3.8 billion. The 5-year-old company announced a partnership with to support robotaxis.

Social media

• , an AI-powered video generation platform for social media, raised an $80 million Series A extension funding which brings its Series A funding total to $130 million. The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.

Education

• Online tutoring platform raised a $150 million Series D led by at a $1.2 billion valuation. The 14-year-old Brookline, Massachusetts-based company was founded by Ukrainians and maintains a team in Ukraine.

Compliance

• ESG compliance software platform raised a $100 million Series C led by , a joint venture between and . The 7-year-old Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany-based company was valued at $1.1 billion.

Energy

• , a developer of a residential energy storage device for electricity and electric vehicles, raised a $163 million funding. The 7-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Related 兔子先生传媒 unicorn lists:

• (1,684)
• (596)
• (37)
• (186)
• (115)
• (102)
• (868)
• (494)
• (226)
• (38)
• (470)

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• High-Spending Investors Give 2026 An Active Start
• In The Era Of Unicorn Valuation Escalation, A Trillion Dollars Isn鈥檛 What It Used To Be
• Global VC Investment Surged In January, With U.S. Dominating Funding, But A Pair Of AI Model IPOs In China
• A Growing Share Of Seed And Series A Funding Is Going To Giant Rounds

Methodology

The 兔子先生传媒 兔子先生传媒 is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on 兔子先生传媒 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 鈥� such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options 鈥� 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. 兔子先生传媒 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 兔子先生传媒 long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

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led the financing, which included participation from , , , and 1聽, among others. The capital was raised at a $5.3 billion valuation, up from $3.3 billion at the time of its $308 million Series D round last April, which was also led by General Atlantic.

In total, the New York-based startup has raised $860 million since its 2018 inception.

Runway describes itself as an applied AI research company building world models for , as well as 鈥渃utting-edge鈥� video generation models that it says are used by tens of millions of consumers and enterprises. Put more simply, the company makes software that enables users to create videos using text prompts or images. Last year, Runway unveiled its new AI model, , which can create videos with consistent characters and backgrounds. It continues to iterate on that model.

Its funding round is another example of robust investor interest in video AI startups. Global funding for AI-related video companies in 2025 totaled $3.08 billion, per 兔子先生传媒 . That鈥檚 up 94.6% from the $1.58 billion raised by AI-related video startups in 2024. is another example of a company in the space that raised a large round in 2025 鈥� that was announced in November at a $4 billion valuation.

From film studios to fintech

Runway declined to reveal revenue figures, with Michelle Kwon, head of operations and partnerships, telling 兔子先生传媒 News only that the startup is 鈥済rowing extremely fast.鈥� The company sells its product on a subscription basis, with various pricing tiers for individual subscriptions and a per-seat model for enterprises.

Its customers are in a wide range of industries and include 鈥渆very major film studio,鈥� according to Kwon, in addition to advertising and marketing firms and in-house creative teams, ad and marketing teams, gaming companies and architecture firms. Its customers include , , , , , , , , , and .

Runway is increasingly working with robotics and autonomous vehicle companies, as its models 鈥渋mprove their ability to simulate real-world environments,鈥� Kwon told 兔子先生传媒 News.

鈥淲e鈥檝e continued to release industry-leading generative video models, including our latest, while also pushing further into world models, which we believe will be key to solving humanity鈥檚 hardest problems across fields like medicine, climate, energy and robotics,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e also expanded our compute infrastructure, in part through an with .鈥�

Runway plans to use its new capital to scale its research and products as it aims to sign larger enterprise contracts.

鈥淲e’ll expand our research capacity and compute infrastructure with an eye on building more capable world models, and continue to develop products on top of those models,鈥� Kwon said. 鈥淭his new money allows us to scale further and faster, both in terms of frontier research and in how we productize that research.鈥�

Runway also continues to boost headcount across all areas, but particularly research, engineering and go-to-market, she added.

Related 兔子先生传媒 query:

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