Start-up
AI start-ups dominate the unicorn scene
AI start-ups made up almost half of the new unicorns in 2024 - their share has doubled compared to the previous year, according to data from AltIndex.com.
In 2024, 83 companies made it into the global unicorn club - a significant drop compared to the unicorn boom of 2022 and 2023, when hundreds of start-ups exceeded the USD 1 billion valuation mark. Although achieving unicorn status has become significantly more difficult, the AI sector bucked this trend and produced more unicorns than any other industry. Statistics show that AI start-ups were responsible for 45% of all new Unicorns in 2024 - 36 out of 83 companies on the list are from the AI sector. This represents a huge increase of 66% compared to 2023, showing that investor demand for artificial intelligence remains high.
The number of new AI unicorns is particularly impressive compared to other sectors. For example, the fintech and crypto sectors together only produced 16 new unicorns, which accounts for just 20% of all new unicorns - i.e. only half the market share of AI start-ups.
In terms of valuation, OpenAI remains the undisputed leader. According to CB Insights, the company behind ChatGPT has more than doubled in value within a year, reaching an impressive valuation of USD 157 billion. This is 2.5 times the valuation of Databricks, the second most valuable AI unicorn at around 62 billion US dollars. It is followed by Anthropic, Elon Musk's xAI and CoreWeave with valuations of 60 billion, 50 billion and 23 billion US dollars respectively.
Latest AI start-up: Thinking Machines Lab
Since February 2025, a new start-up has been trying to conquer the world: Thinking Machines Lab was founded by Mira Murati, the former Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI. It is an AI start-up based in San Francisco that focuses on developing advanced artificial intelligence that is more understandable and customizable for the general public. Thinking Machines Lab is currently in talks to raise 1 billion US dollars in a funding round, which would value the company at around 9 billion US dollars. This high valuation is remarkable given that the start-up is less than a year old.
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