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 Crunchbase 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 Crunchbase , 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 Crunchbase data, investors poured more than $850 million into seed rounds for AI-enabled robotics and drone startups over the past six months. It’s a geographically diversified lineup, with many of the largest rounds going to China-based startups.

To illustrate, we used Crunchbase to put together a list of seven recently funded companies from multiple countries.

Per Crunchbase 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 Crunchbase 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’s not game over for newly launched startups that want to play in this space. Of late, we’re 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’t pay attention to get automated

One of the intriguing things about this particular AI seed-funding data dive is that it didn’t provide many startups that triggered an immediate “I want that” reaction. For the most part, it wasn’t a highly consumer-facing sample set. To the extent upstarts are disrupting established spaces, it was in areas the average person doesn’t 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’t innovations likely to make it into our shopping carts anytime soon.

Related Crunchbase lists:

Related reading:

• Seed Funding In 2025 Broke Records Around Big Rounds And AI, With US Far In The Lead
• These Are Some Leading Spaces For AI Investment At Seed And Early Stage

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.

The pace of big funding rounds continued to hold up at brisk levels this past week, led by a $1.4 billion financing for “robot brain” developer . More big rounds went to startups in sectors including AI chips, brain-computer interfaces, defense tech, biotech and airplanes, among others.

1. , $1.4B, robotics: Skild AI, a robotics company building an “omni-bodied” brain to operate any robot for any task, announced it raised $1.4 billion, tripling its valuation to over $14 billion. led the Pittsburgh-based startup’s latest financing, which comes just over seven months after it raised a at a $4.5 billion valuation.

2. , $500M, AI and semiconductors: Etched.ai, a startup working on chips for AI superintelligence, reportedly $500 million in new funding. led the financing, which was said to set a $5 billion valuation for the Silicon Valley-based company.

3. , $252M, brain-computer interfaces: Merge Labs, a -founded startup based in San Francisco, which is working on brain-computer interfaces that interact with the brain at high bandwidth and integrate with advanced AI, reportedly locked up a $252 million seed round. According to reports, was the largest backer.

4. , $250M, biotech: San Diego-based Mirador Therapeutics, a precision medicine startup developing therapies for immune-mediated inflammatory and fibrotic diseases, it closed on $250 million in Series B funding. The company said the round brings total capital raised to more than $650 million since it launched in March 2024.

5. (tied) , $200M, defense tech: Defense tech startup Onebrief has raised another $200 million and reportedly acquired a small battle simulation company, . and led the Series D funding for Honolulu-based Onebrief, which makes AI-driven collaborative and planning software used for military operations.

5. (tied) , $200M, media: , an Ethereum treasury company, that it made a $200 million equity investment into Beast Industries — also known as MrBeast — the Greenville, South Carolina-based entertainment and consumer products company founded by creator .

7. , $175M, aerospace: Long Beach, California-based JetZero, a developer of planes with much higher fuel efficiency and lower carbon emissions than existing commercial airliners, picked up $175 million in Series B financing led by . Founded in 2020, JetZero says it is looking to enter commercial service in the early 2030s.

8. , $143M, voice AI: Deepgram, an API platform for voice AI, secured $130 million in Series C funding led by at a $1.3 billion valuation. San Francisco-based Deepgram also announced that it acquired , an AI voice platform for restaurants and drive-thru operators.

9. , $136M, defense tech: Colorado Springs, Colorado-based Defense Unicorns, a provider of software delivery for national security mission systems, locked up $136 million in a Series B round led by .

10. (tied) , $120M, robotics: Mytra, a developer of industrial robotics technology for warehouse operations, raised $120 million in a Series C round led by . Founded in 2022, Brisbane, California-based Mytra has raised close to $200 million to date, .

10. (tied) , $120M, AI for manufacturers: Boston-based Tulip Interfaces, a developer of AI-enabled tools for manufacturers to digitize processes and improve production, says it secured $120 million in Series D funding backed by .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Jan. 10-16. 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:

With $2.8 billion in assets under management, the firm has invested in companies including , , , , , , , , , and .

Film producer to tech investor may not seem like the most natural of evolutions. But for Katzenberg, it wasn’t a stretch.

Before DreamWorks, he was chair of , which during his tenure, produced films such as “Aladdin,” “The Lion King,” and “Beauty and the Beast.” He was also previously president of .

Over the course of his illustrious and legendary career, Katzenberg experienced firsthand how technology could impact the film industry — from building a big shark out of plastic and dragging it behind a motorboat as a “special effect” to the “transformative” power of animation.

“I always saw tech as a competitive advantage in storytelling,” Katzenberg told Crunchbase News in an interview.

The introduction of computer graphics and CGI didn’t evolve animation, he said, but “revolutionized” it. And that, he said, is somewhat analogous to what’s going on with AI today, and not just in media, but “writ large.”

“It’s actually a fantastic, interesting use case of where you can see not only total and complete reinvention and disruption, but the ultimate outcome of something bigger and better,” Katzenberg said. “It displaced every job, but it did not eliminate jobs. And that’s where I actually have a slightly more optimistic point of view about what is coming our way [when it comes to AI].”

Today, Katzenberg and WndrCo general partner lead the firm’s enterprise AI investing practice and work with portfolio companies to secure big customer wins, helping them land deals with brands like , , and .

WndroCo Holdco, the firm’s company-building arm, has incubated eight companies with a total of a combined $1.25 billion in top-line revenue and $250 million in EBITDA. Through this strategy, WndrCo partners with founders and CEOs, often acquiring controlling stakes in “underappreciated” tech companies in an effort to turn them into category leaders.

Crunchbase News conducted a video interview with the pair to get their thoughts on what’s next when it comes to enterprise AI and how storytelling can be a competitive advantage.

The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Where are we exactly in the enterprise AI cycle?

Katzenberg: We are of the school that the world is being revolutionized, not “evolutionized,” by the introduction of AI on the third anniversary of ChatGPT and all of the amazing things that have happened since then.

There are many ways to look at AI. It’s such a giant umbrella … and it has so many verticals in it … and so many layers, some of which are out of our realm. We’re not in the hyperscaler business. We’re not in the LLM business. We’re not in the infrastructure side of it. … We are most excited about the simplest applications that actually change how people go about their lives, be it at work or at home in their professional lives or on the consumer side of it.

The overarching category would be the consumerization of software. So we’re trying to stay very focused on this idea that if you actually just took what has already been created with these large language models, and where we are in January 2026, the value that can be built today with the tech that has already been created and is deployable, could be bigger than everything that has come before it.

Wexler: We’re in a pretty unique role in this ecosystem that we have a lot of pride in. Jeffrey has built so many relationships over decades, and a lot of folks admire the transformation he had to go through in animation. So we just try to be a really close partner to a lot of Fortune 500 execs, as they’re thinking about, “There’s this totally game-changing technology with generative LM AI and agentic AI. How do I deploy it to transform my part of the organization?”

…Getting deployments at scale that are successful is hard to do, and it’s hard for many reasons. There’s a lot of confusion in a lot of these organizations on how best to set up AI for a lot of success. It’s hard for a startup alone to try to be learning about an organization while selling and while competing with a lot of other noise in the market. … One thing that we spend a lot of time with the founders we work with is helping them navigate that … because if you can prove success, then you can really scale. It’s also a huge unlock for enterprise. But to date, there’s been a lot of deployments that, because you don’t have that alignment, it’s a lose-lose for everybody.

We actually counted one company that did like 200 meetings with a startup, and it went nowhere because the alignment wasn’t there. The technology could have been very impactful to them, but they didn’t have that organizational alignment. So that ingredient is so important. We’ve tried to play that role.

Katzenberg: I think that’s where our role is becoming more important and valuable, and that can be summed up in a simple word: trust. We’ve now been doing this long enough that we have built out a pretty extraordinary network of relationships with the Fortune 500 companies and the C-suites there, and we have brought multiple products to them over the past couple of years, each one of which has actually delivered on its promise.

So today, I find that when we come in with a new product, a new offering, a new company, it’s easier; it’s not easy, but it’s easier.

We are super sensitive around the issues of reliability, security, data protections and all of the things that we already know we can anticipate where people are going to be anxious.

You have said that you work closely with your companies and landing these big logos and clients. What separates a cool AI demo from a product that actually does become embedded in enterprise workflows?

Wexler: We found that it’s hard to build for everybody all at once. There’s incredible AI and technology that serves SMB and mid-markets. But the founders we’ve seen that have the most success in enterprise, built for enterprise from day one. They didn’t try to move up, as they’re getting some traction with startups. They built with compliance from day one. That way, it’s much easier to get HIPAA compliant and GDPR versus trying to make changes along the product journey.

… so you can scope a great initial proof of concept or pilot, but they’re betting just as much on this potentially being a new partner for them for the longer term. We’ve seen a one-year deal turn into a three-year deal, and actually a couple companies are starting to talk about four- or even five-year contracts, which we have not seen previously with AI startups. But it’s happening now, and just goes to show the level of comfort that enterprises are gaining, and the trust that they’re gaining with some of the most innovative early-stage companies that could be long-term partners for them.

When you look at AI startups today, how do you decide whether something is actually an AI company or really just like a feature on top of somebody else’s model?

Wexler: We have a portfolio of companies that we would categorize as AI, and they partner very well with the major LM companies, whether it’s , or . We also have companies like Writer, which have trained off of the models either from scratch or from working Llama models as well, where they really take an ownership in trying to build a best-of-breed model for their specific use case. There’s been success with both.

Where do you expect most of the enterprise value to actually accrue? Would it be an infrastructure foundation? Models, application layer?

Katzenberg: I think 100% at the application level, not 80% or 90%, but 100%, as best we are seeing. That’s where you can actually see incremental value. It is additive and it is not, rip and replace. Now, will this accelerate in coming years? Likely. But this idea that in the next five years, 80% of white-collar workers are going to be replaced, I think, is just way ahead. I’m not saying that might not actually be correct in the long run, but the transition to it is going to be, I think, significantly more than five years.

Wexler: As application-tier companies build their case studies and prove examples, the rest of those industries pay close attention, see the success and want to follow. So then as application-tier companies scale, they’re actually the ones who choose the infrastructure that’s best for them, and that includes the LLMs as well. Really, what the end client, the Fortune 500 or the enterprise, is getting is kind of a package solution. A lot of people were trying to build CRMs and ERP before 1 really built the bundled solution that became the industry standard. We’re going to see that for particular use cases. Look no further than or .

Katzenberg: The big hyperscalers probably have the capability of doing it all. But they don’t have the capacity, and they don’t have the focus. And so that’s why, when you look at a Bridge, or you look at Harvey or Cursor, in these cases these are phenomenal entrepreneurs who are brilliant and singularly focused. They have this one idea, this vision if you will, for an exceptional application with a value.

So can somebody come along and do what any of those three companies can? They can’t do it all, and they’re not going to do it with that same laser ambition and focus of a great entrepreneur. They might have the capabilities to do it, but I don’t think they have the focus. They can’t. When you try to be all things to all people, you end up not being anything.

Looking ahead to 2026, what do you expect the biggest correction to be — whether in valuations, business models or assumptions founders and investors are making about enterprise AI today?

Katzenberg: I have a bottomless well of optimism. I’m not looking for the clouds on the horizon. Where’s the concern? Where are the anxieties coming from? I’m not saying that it’s not there. It’s just in our lane, there’s too much opportunity I do feel we are well equipped to navigate.

In AI specifically, what are some nonnegotiable qualities that you look for in a founder?

Wexler: It’s a pretty high bar to be a great AI founder. There’s a lot of demands on you. You’re at the cutting edge of technology where things are constantly shifting faster than any other era. You have to stay on top of that and be on the bleeding edge. Because if not, it’s going to be hard. You have to be able to truly understand these pain points in a way that you can articulate how technology can solve them, and in a way that has not been solved before.

How does great storytelling, in your opinion, actually change outcomes?

Katzenberg: One of the things that was the siren drawing me to Silicon Valley and company building is I realized very, very early on how foundational storytelling is to every single chapter of every single company’s journey in that the better you can tell your story, the more successful you are.

Telling your story in every phase of company building is more than essential, it’s existential. The way in which you get other people to join you and pursue your idea as an entrepreneur, you’ve got to be able to share your dream in a way that others can get excited about, and recognize your vision, your ambition, your dream.

You have to be able to tell it to get other people to come on the journey with you. You need to tell it to investors in order to be able to raise money. You need to be able to tell it to customers when you go to market, and virtually every step along the way in company building and company running.

Related reading:

• ‘Zero Billion-Dollar Markets’: Inside Foundation Capital’s Strategy To Back Ideas Before They’re Industries
• From Web 2.0 To AI: How True Ventures Is Backing The Next Big Shift

Illustration:

StubHub, which operates a marketplace for tickets to live events, had priced shares for its offering at $23.50 each late Tuesday, right in the middle of the projected range. Shares closed down 6% at $22.

The offering raised $800 million for the company, whose shares are trading on the under the ticker STUB. It set an initial valuation of around $8.5 billion.

The offering has been a long-time coming for New York-based StubHub, which was founded back in 2000 with the aim of offering a centralized marketplace for reselling tickets. The startup later caught the attention of , which acquired it in 2007.

In 2019, the business sold for $4.05 billion to , a ticket marketplace founded by StubHub co-founder , who was ousted from the latter in 2004. The tie-up included backing from , and , which respectively own 25%, 12% and 9% of Class A shares in StubHub.

The IPO follows a period of modest sales growth for StubHub, which reported revenue of $828 million in the first half of this year — up about 3% from a year ago. The company posted a net loss of $76 million for the first half of the year, up from $24 million in the year-earlier period.

StubHub initially filed to go public in March but delayed its debut amid a market downturn that commenced shortly afterward. IPO activity has subsequently picked up again, with StubHub one of several larger recent debuts, including well-received entries last week by consumer fintech and blockchain lender . Concurrently, we’re also seeing heightened buzz around potential new market entrants.

Related Crunchbase query:

Related reading:

• Klarna Shares Pop In Long-Awaited Public Market Entry
• Shares of Blockchain Lender Figure Surge 24% Higher In First Day On Nasdaq
• The IPO Market Is Opening Up. These 14 Companies Could Be Next.

Illustration:

The company originally filed plans to go public in March, but ended up hitting pause on its plans in April after President announced plans for sweeping tariffs. Now it is planning to conduct its initial public offering in September, according to , which cited an updated SEC filing.

StubHub will make its debut later in September after kicking off its IPO roadshow after Labor Day, sources told . The San Francisco-based company will list on the under the ticker STUB.

In an updated prospectus, StubHub revealed that its revenue grew 10% year over year in the first quarter to $397.6 million. However, its net loss increased — to $35.9 million from $29.7 million a year ago.

The U.S. tech IPO scene has been picking up as of late, and overall, market reception has been positive.

Shares of San Francisco-based design software provider soared 250% in first-day trading on July 31, an indication that the tech IPO market is alive and very enthusiastic.

And on Aug. 7, shares of Cedar Park, Texas-based closed up 34% in first-day trading, demonstrating that there’s investor appetite for a new opportunity in space tech.

We’ve also seen large, well-received debuts from , , and others.

Related reading:

• Figma More Than Triples In First-Day Trading
• Firefly Aerospace Launches Higher In First-Day Trading

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 rounds here.

This was a big week for big checks, both confirmed and reported. Among confirmed rounds, the largest financing went to fintech provider , which landed $500 million at a $22.5 billion valuation to scale its visions around agentic AI. The next-largest financings went to , a developer of medicines for brain disorders, and , a healthcare AI startup.

As for giant deals that were reported but not officially closed, was said to be a round of up to $5 billion led by that would push its valuation all the way to $170 billion.

1. , $500M, fintech: New York-based Ramp, a provider of financial products and tools for businesses to automate finance tasks, raised $500 million at a $22.5 billion valuation. led the Series E financing, which brings total equity funding to date to $1.9 billion.

2. , $372.5M, biopharma and neuroscience: MapLight Therapeutics, a biopharma startup developing medicines for brain disorders, that it raised $372.5 million in Series D funding. and co-led the financing for the 7-year-old, Redwood City, California-based company.

3. , $243M, healthcare AI: Ambience Healthcare, an AI platform for healthcare systems to use in documentation, coding and clinical documentation, raised $243 million in a Series C round. and led the financing for the San Francisco-based company.

4. , $200M, fashion: Quince, an affordable luxury brand online retailer, raised $200 million at a valuation of more than $4.5 billion, according to a report from . reportedly led the San Francisco-based company’s latest financing.

5. , $156M, AI enterprise software: San Mateo, California-based Observe, a provider of AI-enabled observability tools for businesses, raised $156 million in a Series C funding round led by . The financing brings funding to date for the 8-year-old company to more than $460 million, .

6. (tied) , $150M, fleet management: San Francisco-based Motive, a provider of fleet tracking and driver safety software, raised $150 million in a new funding round led by . The 12-year-old company is also reportedly toward an IPO.

6. (tied) , $150M, AI software: Anaconda, a provider of AI tools for businesses using Python and open source applications, it raised over $150 million in a Series C funding round led by . The Austin, Texas-based company said it currently operates profitably with over $150 million in annual recurring revenue as of July.

8. , $132M, radiopharmaceuticals: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Artbio, a clinical-stage radiopharmaceutical startup developing therapies (ARTs) to treat a range of cancers, raised $132 million in a Series B round that included and as lead investors.

9. , $125M, generative media: San Francisco-based Fal, a startup offering a generative image, video and audio platform for developers, raised $125 million in a Series C led by . The 4-year-old company said it has seen revenue increase 60x in the past 12 months.

10. ., $100M, cloud infrastructure: Oxide Computer Co., a developer of cloud infrastructure for on-premises computing, raised $100 million in a Series B round led by . Founded in 2019, the Emeryville, California-based company has raised over $260 million to date, .

Methodology

We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the seven-day period of July 26-Aug. 1. 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:

The five new unicorns from Europe mark the highest monthly count of new billion-dollar startups since 2023 for the continent. They included the first two from Germany and the first company from Portugal so far this year to be valued at $1 billion-plus. The U.K. also added two companies last month, marking three total this year.

Six companies joined from the U.S., adding up to 31 so far this year. And two companies joined from India, adding up to three companies in 2025 year to date.

Collectively, these 13 companies added $21.7 billion in value to the board in May.

Sales and marketing, and defense tech — sectors impacted by AI — led for new unicorn companies in May, with two each.

Exits

Six companies exited the board in May, removing $13.4 billion in value.

They include four unicorn companies that went public last month: Israel-based social trading platform , San Francisco-based digital clinic , India-based electric scooter manufacturer , and Austin, Texas-based advertising platform . Each of these companies went public at or above their last known valuation, except for Hinge Health which was last valued at $6.2 billion and debuted at $2.6 billion.

Two unicorns were acquired. Coding startup , last valued at $1.1 billion in 2024 was acquired by for $3 billion. , a direct to consumer snack company known for its frozen smoothies, valued at $1.1 billion in 2021, was acquired by for an undisclosed amount.

 May’s newly minted unicorns

Here are the 13 newly minted unicorns in May, by sector.

Sales and marketing

• , a marketing solution for apps to grow users and engagement, raised an undisclosed funding from . The 12-year-old California-based company was valued at $4.3 billion. It was acquired by in 2020.
• , a platform for automating customer interactions, raised a $120 million Series C led by , and . The 6-year-old Berlin, Germany-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Defense tech

• Lisboa, Portugal-based , a builder of unmanned aerial surveillance systems, raised an undisclosed funding amount at a $1.3 billion valuation. The 24-year-old company’s surveillance technology .
• , a dual-use company building unmanned drones for the defense sector, raised a $181 million Series C led by . The 10-year-old Bayern, Germany-based company was valued at $1 billion.

DevOps

• IoT device management service raised a minority investment led by ’s fund at a value of $4.65 billion. The 25-year-old U.K.-based company was acquired by private equity firm in 2018.

Biotechnology

• , an AI oncology drug development company, raised a $365 million Series D without disclosing investors. The 4-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.

E-commerce

• , a photorealistic try on technology for fashion, raised an undisclosed amount from family office. The 2-year-old Nevada-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Logistics

• Bangalore, India-based , a last-mile delivery provider for businesses, raised a $200 million Series F led by and . The 11-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Product tools

• , a data-driven product development platform, raised a $100 million Series C led by . The 4-year-old Bellevue, Washington-based company was valued at $1.1 billion.

HR

• , an employee recognition platform, raised a $165 million Series B led by and . The 14-year-old Utah-based company was valued at $1 billion.

SaaS

• , a provider of tools for restaurants to increase sales, raised a $120 million Series C led by and. The 7-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Media and entertainment

• London, U.K.-based , an indie streaming service, raised a $100 million funding led by . The 18-year-old company was valued at $1 billion.

Raw materials

• , an e-commerce marketplace for steel and cement, raised a $40 million Series B led by and . The 5-year-old Mumbai, India-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists:

• (1,585)
• (52)
• (110)
• (102)
• (793)
• (494)
• (206)
• (37)
• (444)
• (514)

Related reading:

• The Week’s Biggest Funding Rounds: Pathos, Addepar Top Busy Week For Health And Fintech 

Methodology

The Crunchbase ������Ƶ is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase 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. Crunchbase 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 Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration:

Nonetheless, we are seeing some large rounds getting done in the space of late. Confirmation of a fresh funding for one prominent company came this weekend, as , a streaming platform for independent films, closed on $100 million from .

Founded in 2007, London-based MUBI (formerly the Auteurs) pitches itself as “a place to discover ambitious films by visionary filmmakers.” It sells a monthly subscription to an international cross section of works, including many film festival award winners.

Its financing comes amid a sluggish period for venture funding in the media space. As charted below, funding to Crunchbase media-related industry categories has totaled around $10 billion annually in the past two calendar years — down more than two-thirds from the 2021 peak.

So far, 2025 looks on track to produce a funding total similar to last year. While we haven’t seen much activity around streaming platforms such as MUBI, we are seeing artificial intelligence-focused startups in the media space attract investors’ wallets and attention.

One of the larger rounds this year went to , a developer of AI models for media generation that raised $308 million in an April round. The new round — led by — values the AI video startup at more than $3 billion, about double its valuation from less than two years ago.

Two other AI-centric media upstarts — and — also secured rounds of $180 million each. ElevenLabs offers AI tools for generating voiceovers, while Synthesia provides tools for turning text into videos.

Related Crunchbase query:

Related reading:

• AI Image Startup Runway Raises At $3B

Illustration:

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

The company declined to comment.

“Investing isn’t just for rich kids & boomers,” . Through text messages, the company sends users money tips to go from “broke to ballin.”

One example: If a Stackin’ user sets up an auto-deposit, the company will give the user $25 dollars. There are also automatic saving features and tips tailored to personal financial goals. The startup’s website claims it has about 500,000 users.

It is not clear what the new funding will be used for; however, there are hints of where the capital could be deployed on its website. With the detail “coming soon,” Stackin’ advertises an option for users to invest in “the things you love like legal cannabis, sneakers, pizza and more. Get started for as little as $5 and upgrade your financial future.”

The company also works on financial literacy. For example, on Facebook, Stackin’ posted an informational video titled ”

The company claims all user data is protected through encryption and bank level security.

There’s no shortage of financial technology startups that want to make millennials better with money. , a saving startup, raised $105 million in January. In March, , focused on helping its 3 million users avoid bank fees, raised $200 million led by DST Global. In April, raised $300 million at a $2.9 billion post-money valuation.

Interestingly enough, Stackin’ co-founder and CEO Scott Grimes that the majority of its income comes from Chime and , which pay Stackin’ to advertise its money-saving businesses. Neither Chime nor Ellevest immediately responded for comment.

Illustration:

Follow Crunchbase News on &

As we have written previously, Vox isn’t alone in moving away from video. Prior to the Vox �Ա�ɲ�,��Mic had cut staff after pivoting to video. Cracked did the same, and . Adding Vox to the mix underlines the reverse-trend. Pivoting away from video is the new pivoting to video.

The changes at Vox come in the wake of Facebook’s , undercutting the strategy of driving video viewership on external properties; if the distribution dries up, the implied, hoped-for monetization dries up as well.

If there was ever as much money in video as previously word-focused publications hoped is debatable. I lived through a video push at a publication a few years back and am utterly not convinced. Video is always twice as hard and four times as expensive as anyone expects, and a supply gut will wrangle margins to dust. (On a related note, this is why podcasting is so popular. It’s easier to create and monetizes decently.)

But there is good news on hand. The Atlantic that it is working to hire about 100 new people over the next year, a “30 percent boost in personnel, with new people joining every division—from print, digital, and video to Live, CityLab, and Atlantic 57.”

How is The Atlantic making that financially possible? Here’s a hint from :

It’s oddly encouraging that something that wasn’t good—mass-produced social-focused god-awful video clips—is fading while consumer-financed traditional journalism is bubbling up.¹ It’s now a question of when the latter can overcome the cuts brought about by the decline of the former.

1. This is not to imply that Vox was up to such things, merely that such things were up at other publications.

Top Image Credit: