The ecosystem of technology startups is undergoing a fundamental transformation. The new determinant of value is no longer simply growth rate or market share, but the ability to commercially exploit artificial intelligence. Data compiled by Stocklytics.com based on CB Insights shows that 40% of the world’s ten most valuable unicorns are active in the field of AI.
The value of the eight largest of these has already exceeded USD 543 billion. For comparison – more than the current capitalisation of the entire energy sector in Germany. What’s more, 28 AI startups have already made it to the list of unicorns in 2025 alone. This is more than half of all newly valued technology companies from that year.
OpenAI leading the new hand
The leader remains OpenAI, whose value has risen to a record $300 billion after a funding round led by SoftBank in March 2025. This is the second highest valuation for a private technology company in the world – just behind SpaceX. OpenAI is followed by Databricks (USD 62 billion), Anthropic (USD 61.5 billion) and xAI – Elon Musk’s startup valued at USD 50 billion.
Companies such as Safe Superintelligence ($30bn), Scale AI ($13.8bn), Celonis ($13bn) and Grammarly ($13bn) complete the list. Together, they have already raised more than $147bn from investors. It is worth mentioning that most of these rounds are not so much typical VC investments, but strategic partnerships with major infrastructure companies such as Microsoft, AWS and Nvidia.
US in a dominant position
Seven of the eight most valuable AI unicorns are based in the US, mainly in California. The only exception is Celonis, a German startup specialising in so-called process mining, which, despite its European roots, today conducts most of its customers and development overseas.
US dominance in the field of AI is not just the result of technological superiority. It is also the result of a pre-built ecosystem: cloud infrastructure, VC capital and open regulation. By comparison – in Europe, AI unicorns can be counted on the fingers of one hand and their valuations rarely exceed $5 billion.
Boom despite cautious VC market
Surprisingly, the AI sector is growing rapidly despite a marked cooling in the venture capital market. After the record years of 2021-2022, funding for startups in general fell significantly. However, AI has broken out of this trend – both in terms of the number of rounds and valuations.
There are now already 273 AI unicorns operating worldwide – 11% more than a year ago and almost four times as many as in 2020. This means that the sector is now the largest generator of new technology companies with billion-dollar valuations. The scalability, efficiency and potential of AI deployments across a wide range of industries are leading investors to treat it as a systemically important technology – much like the cloud or mobile internet used to be.
Vertical markets and infrastructure dominate
The highest valuations are achieved by companies in two categories: Infrastructure AI (such as OpenAI or Anthropic) and specialised AI for vertical markets (such as Celonis, Scale AI or Grammarly). This confirms that the greatest investment potential lies in those areas where AI can either scale solutions horizontally or dramatically improve productivity in narrow domains.
However, there is a lack of unicorns in consumer AI segments outside the area of LLMs and chatbots. Paradoxically – even though ChatGPT has been the face of the revolution, most of the capital is flowing to the underlying models and developer support tools, not to the end applications.
From a B2B market and technology sales channel perspective, the rise of AI unicorns signals a structural transformation. Technology partners, integrators and distributors should keep an eye not only on established brands, but also on fast-growing infrastructure companies and specialised AI startups, which may soon become key players in the enterprise market.
At the same time, a scenario in which the largest AI companies do not go public, but are absorbed by the technology giants, seems increasingly likely. Already today, Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon are strategic investors in most of them. As a result, AI could not only dominate the technology market, but also concretise the dominance of the existing leaders.
AI as the engine of a new paradigm
The AI revolution is a paradigm shift that affects how value is created, how companies are valued, how they relate to investors and how they define innovation. In such an environment, the advantage will be gained not only by those who are first to implement new technologies, but also by those who can build a sustainable, scalable business model around them.
