In October, private companies globally raised 1,350+ early-stage rounds globally (noting this total will rise as more deals are published retroactively).

Download the full report to access comprehensive CB Insights data on early-stage activity, including top investors & deals, valuation data, and our predictive signals. Below, we highlight notable trends to watch.

Review the full deal dataset

Emerging tech trends to watch

Click the links to see underlying deal activity. Companies mentioned based on CB Insights Mosaic startup potential scores and relevance.

Stablecoin infrastructure is blockchain’s breakout category

Blockchain startups raised over 80 deals in October (out of 1,394 total early-stage deals), in line with September’s activity. The deals accounted for $1.1B in funding, representing 13% of total early-stage dollars invested in the month and a major jump from prior months, thanks to Tempo’s $500M round. 

Overall, institutional investor activity (20 blockchain deals had CVC backers) and a median deal size of $6M (vs. $2.5M across the venture landscape) indicates investor conviction in a maturing blockchain landscape. See the companies already deploying their solutions in the market with CB Insights Commercial Maturity scores here.

Stablecoin infrastructure emerged as a leading theme, with 15+ companies raising capital in October. 

The build-out is happening across multiple layers. At the protocol level, Tempo (744 Mosaic), a Layer-1 blockchain developed by Stripe and Paradigm for stablecoin transactions and payments, raised the largest round of the month — a $500M Series A at a $5B valuation. 

Activity extends to the middleware layer, with Tesser (618 Mosaic, $4.5M seed) and Cybrid (705 Mosaic, $10M Series A) building API infrastructure that lets traditional banks integrate stablecoin capabilities.

Geographic diversification is notable as well. Lumx (596 Mosaic, $3.4M seed) focuses on stablecoin payments infrastructure in Latin America, while Standard Economics (671 Mosaic, $9M) is targeting developing markets with cross-border payment solutions. 

The activity signals the potential of stablecoin rails to become core financial infrastructure. 

Review the stablecoin market map (May 2025) here.

AI agents make inroads across semiconductor design, healthcare, payments

Companies targeting AI agent applications & infrastructure raised over 70 deals in October. Smart Money investors — the top 25 VCs identified by CB Insights — backed 16 AI agent startups (22%) in the month.

Key emerging trends to note based on deal activity include:

• Browser automation & web agent infrastructure (5 deals): Most business-critical workflows still live in web UIs that require manual navigation rather than APIs. Companies like Kernel (646 Mosaic, $22M Series A) provide browsers-as-a-service infrastructure that enables agents to interact with websites.
• Semiconductor & hardware design (5 deals): Hardware engineering, from semiconductor chips to mechanical CAD, involves complex, time-intensive design and verification tasks. ChipAgents (710 Mosaic, $21M Series A) automates chip design workflows, while Adam (576 Mosaic, $4.1M) provides AI-powered CAD tools for mechanical engineering and 3D design.
• Voice agents for healthcare (4 deals): Healthcare providers face labor shortages and 24/7 patient communication demands. Attuned Intelligence (669 Mosaic, $13M seed), Remedy (474 Mosaic, $0.5M YC note), and OutcomesAI ($10M seed) deploy voice agents that handle appointment scheduling, prescription refills, and patient triage autonomously.
• Payments & transaction infrastructure (4 deals): To enable agents to initiate transactions, companies like Kite AI (702 Mosaic, Series A) are building specialized payment infrastructure. Others in this category such as Pagentic (562 Mosaic, $2M pre-seed) are focused on building payments and billing infrastructure for monetizing AI agents’ activities.

Compare 17 players in the AI agent payments infrastructure landscape on CB Insights.

Real-world training data providers scale specialized AI capabilities

Foundation models are bottlenecked by training data quality and diversity. October early-stage activity (6 deals) highlights specialized data providers emerging as important infrastructure for AI development, particularly for reasoning, coding, and physical-world applications. 

For example: 

• DataCurve (822 Mosaic, $15M Series A) offers a “bounty” platform where software engineers complete coding tasks to generate high-quality training data for models
• General Intuition (664 Mosaic, $134M seed) is training spatial-temporal reasoning models on interactive video data from gaming environments
• Lucent (507 Mosaic, $1.3M pre-seed) creates behavioral datasets from real-world product web interactions to train browser agents
• Hillclimb (479 Mosaic, $0.5M YC note) connects mathematicians with AI labs to create advanced math training data to improve models’ reasoning abilities

Wildfire detection & prevention technology attracts investment

Wildfire seasons are intensifying globally, driving demand for new detection and response technologies (5 deals). Companies like SenseNet (Mosaic 777, $10M Series A) and Frontline Wildfire Defense (Mosaic, $48M Series A) are deploying detection networks (sensors, cameras, and satellite data), automated suppression systems (sprinklers, foam, drones), and predictive risk platforms for utilities, governments, and property owners in fire-prone regions.

Review the wildfire tech market map (February 2025) here. 

Methodology

This report includes equity early-stage financings (convertible note, angel, pre-seed, seed, Series A) to private companies in October 2025. We excluded companies that are later-stage that raised an angel round or convertible note in the month. Categorization based primarily on company descriptions.

FURTHER READING

• State of Venture Q3’25
• State of AI Q3’25
• Early-Stage Trends Report: Smart Money is all in on AI agents, the rise of autonomous labs, and more in September
• The AI agent market map

The post Early-Stage Trends Report: Stablecoins’ breakout moment, real-world AI training data, and more in October appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Since our last mapping in March 2025, the landscape has exploded from roughly 300 players to thousands as tech companies race to launch AI agent offerings across horizontal use cases and industry applications.

Agentic solutions have become a leading acquisition target for enterprise software incumbents, while 1 in 5 new unicorns ($1B+ valuation) are now developing agents.

To help navigate this expansion, we mapped 400+ promising private companies building AI agent applications.

Track 1,700+ AI agent companies

We selected companies for inclusion based on Mosaic startup health and potential scores (600+). We included private companies only with agent offerings and organized them according to their primary focus. This market map is not exhaustive of the space. For companies building infrastructure for agents, see our AI agent tech stack.

Please click to enlarge.

Want to be considered for future AI agent research? Brief our analysts to ensure we have the most up-to-date data on your company.

Here’s what today’s AI agent landscape signals about the future of tech:

• The private AI agent market is moving towards greater specialization. Horizontal AI agent startups outnumber verticalized solutions nearly 2-1 in the landscape. However, since we last published the map, industry-specific solutions have surged. This iteration features 47 companies in the healthcare & life sciences category, up from 7 in March. Partly behind the surge are commercially mature private companies launching agent offerings (or rebranding) to meet the moment. At the same time, emerging startups (see our analysis of Y Combinator’s recent batches here and here) are betting that highly regulated industries will favor specialized solutions over horizontal tools. 
• Leading AI agent companies are growing revenue at lightning speed, with the top 20 revenue leaders (with agents as a primary product) averaging just 3.8 years old. Software development leads revenue activity with 6 coding agents making the top rankings including Anysphere (Cursor) and Replit. This market is the most crowded on the map, reflecting the value agents bring to well-defined workflows and testable environments. But it’s also facing challenges as reasoning models drive higher inference costs, previewing the pricing pressures other agent categories will face. CB Insights customers can dig into revenue data for the full AI agent & copilot landscape with this search. 
• AI agent startups focused on cybersecurity operations are most primed to exit, based on average CB Insights M&A probability scores. Nullify (autonomous agents for application security) and Strike Ready (AI-powered SOC platform) top the list with 70%+ probability of getting acquired within the next two years. AI-related cybersecurity M&A (both for AI security solutions and AI-powered solutions) has already reached record levels in 2025 so far. Cyber leaders are snapping up competitors to keep up with an evolving attack surface. 

Methodology & category notes

Companies profiled on the map are working on various levels of autonomy, from agentic, LLM-powered workflows to fully autonomous agents.

These agents combine reasoning (foundation models for decision-making), memory (information storage and retrieval), tool use (external system integration), and planning (task decomposition and adaptation) capabilities.

We excluded companies building agent-specific infrastructure, focusing on startups targeting core enterprise use cases and industry-specific workflows.

Companies were selected from a pool of over 1,700 based on their CB Insights Mosaic score. 

Mosaic score

Evaluates the overall health and growth potential of private companies based on performance, financial stability, market conditions, and management strength. It combines these factors into a single score (out of 1,000).

Enterprise tech

Click into each market to view the full description and market players on the CB Insights platform. 

This segment primarily features startups targeting enterprises, with industry-agnostic applications across job functions such as:

• Data analytics
• Coding
• Finance and accounting
• Sales
• Marketing
• Customer service
• Recruiting
• Security operations centers
• Legal (in-house)
• IT operations & support 

Companies in the productivity & personal assistants category are targeting consumers and employees directly across applications like research, time management, and other browser-based tasks. 

General workflow automation & knowledge management tools are one of the largest categories on the map, encompassing the AI agent builder platforms market, which offers no-code and low-code solutions for business users to automate workflows. 

Industry-specific 

This layer features companies catering to industry applications, including: 

• Financial services & insurance (e.g., investment research, loan servicing & collections, compliance workflows) 
• Healthcare & life sciences (e.g., revenue cycle management, clinical documentation, patient access)
• Industrials (e.g., manufacturing optimization, supply chain, construction)
• Retail & hospitality (e.g., shopping agents, website personalization, restaurant & hotel) 

FURTHER READING 

• The AI agent bible
• The AI agent tech stack
• The AI agent market map: March 2025 edition
• State of AI Q3’25

The post The AI agent market map appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Rising costs, workforce shortages, and clinician burnout are straining the system — all while patient demand continues to climb. At the same time, funding has tightened, with deal volume dropping to a 5-year low. The pressure to deliver real outcomes has never been higher.

At HLTH USA 2025, these challenges took center stage. Industry leaders focused less on hype and more on systemic change: how healthcare is delivered, how it’s paid for, and how technology can help bridge the gaps.

Want to see more research? Start your free trial.

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To create the Tech IPO Pipeline, we scored companies across CBI datasets including Mosaic scores, hiring insights, revenues, exit probabilities, business relationships, and more.

Check out key highlights across the Tech IPO Pipeline below.

CBI customers: See these companies ranked by Mosaic and revenue

Combining CB Insights’ proprietary data and AI, scouting reports provide insight into each company’s:

• Funding history
• Headcount
• Key opportunities and threats
• IPO prospects
• Mosaic score

For customers, get the full book of 100+ scouting reports using the download button on the lefthand side.

MORE CB INSIGHTS RESEARCH:

• State of Venture Q3’25 Report
• Future Tech Hotshots: 2025: 45 emerging tech startups poised to make an outsized impact
• State of AI Q3’25 Report

For information on reprint rights or other inquiries, please contact reprints@cbinsights.com.

The post Tech IPO Pipeline 2026: Book of Scouting Reports appeared first on CB Insights Research.

While deals fell in Q3’25, billion-dollar rounds to AI infrastructure players continued to drive the funding surge. But the activity isn’t limited to the largest players: investors are cutting bigger checks across every stage, signaling both conviction in AI’s potential and the high costs of AI development.

Among emerging opportunities, AI agents are a key focus for VCs and enterprises alike, with agent markets leading deal and M&A activity in the quarter.

Below, we break down the top stories from this quarter’s report, including:

• AI deal activity softens, but massive rounds support continued funding boom
• Consolidation remains in full force in the AI market
• Tech market deals highlight AI agent applications, rise of GEO
• The talent premium: AI companies valued at up to ~$100M per employee

Download the full report to access comprehensive CB Insights data and charts on the evolving state of AI across geographies.

AI deal activity softens, but massive rounds support continued funding boom

Deals to private AI companies globally fell 22% quarter-over-quarter in Q3’25, but funding remained above $45B for the fourth consecutive quarter.

Taken together, these trends indicate how top-heavy the AI venture funding landscape has become. 

The average deal size in 2025 YTD is $49.3M — up 86% from 2024. In the last 4 quarters, mega-rounds ($100M+ deals) have accounted for 75%+ funding. The average since 2021 (up to Q3’24) is 53%. 

At the same time, check sizes are trending bigger at the median across every stage this year. For example, the median early-stage deal is $3.4M in 2025 YTD, up from $2.5M in 2024. 

Investors are funneling capital into fewer, larger bets on perceived AI winners, driven by the massive infrastructure costs and competitive dynamics of foundation model development.

In Q3’25, there were 6 $1B+ rounds alone. The top 3 deals went to LLM developers — Anthropic ($13B, Series F), OpenAI ($8.3B, PE), and Mistral AI ($1.5B, Series C) — reflecting the high cost of frontier model development. While OpenAI hit $12B in annualized revenue in July 2025, it’s projecting roughly $8B in cash burn this year per reports. 

Other infrastructure players like Nscale (AI data centers, $1.1B Series B) and Groq (AI inference processors, $750M, Series E) were also in the top 10. The raises are indicative of the growth and attention technologies enabling AI are receiving, with earnings call mentions of data centers hitting record levels in Q3’25 and AI training & inference chips on track for record equity deal & funding activity this year.

Consolidation remains in full force in the AI market

The AI market is a hotbed for M&A activity. 

Q3’25 marks the second highest quarter on record for AI startup M&A (172 deals), following Q2’25 (181 deals). The US continues to gain share, with startups based in the country accounting for 59% of total exits, the highest share since Q2’21. 

Three of the top 5 exits in the quarter were related to AI agents: 

• Workday acquired Sana Labs, a company focused on enterprise workflows, for $1.1B. 
• NiCE acquired customer support startup Cognigy for $955M. 
• Atlassian acquired The Browser Company, the maker of the Arc and Dia AI browsers, for $610M. 

The activity signals enterprise software incumbents are looking to buy their way into accelerating their AI roadmaps. Workday was the second most active acquirer in the quarter with 3 acquisitions (behind Salesforce, with 4 acquisitions). The HR & finance software company also picked up agent builder Flowise and AI-powered recruiting platform Paradox.

Meanwhile, Meta made its first publicly disclosed acquisitions since 2022, acquiring voice AI startups Play AI and WaveForms AI.

Other notable top exits include AI security companies Lakera (acquired by Check Point for $300M) and Prompt Security (acquired by SentinelOne for $250M-$300M). Generative AI is expanding attack surfaces, driving large cyber players to opt for M&A to more quickly integrate AI security features into existing offerings.

Both Lakera and Prompt Security were founded less than 5 years ago, far “younger” than the average time to exit of 9.7 years in the quarter, underscoring how rapidly AI security has become mission-critical.

Review the AI security startups that are ripe for acquisition next in this brief.

Tech market deals highlight AI agent applications, rise of GEO

Among the 1,500+ tech markets that CB Insights tracks, those in the chart below saw the greatest number of AI deals in Q3’25 (note: companies may appear in multiple markets).

Industrial humanoid robot developers and coding AI agents & copilots remained at the top, while LLM developers also climbed back up in the rankings from Q2’25.  

One notable rising market is generative engine optimization (GEO), which refers to tools that help brands optimize their visibility in AI search platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. This emerging category (the most nascent in the list based on CBI Commercial Maturity scores) addresses the shift toward shopping and discovery happening on top of LLM interfaces.

OpenAI’s September 2025 launch of in-platform shopping capabilities in ChatGPT underscores this trend, establishing AI platforms as new commerce channels requiring specialized optimization strategies.

Using CB Insights’ Mosaic score — which measures private company health and predicts likelihood of success — we analyzed more than 20 GEO companies, ranking them by 1-year Mosaic score growth to identify the fastest-rising vendors. 

See the GEO partners best positioned to help brands win in AI search here. 

The talent premium: AI companies valued at up to ~$100M per employee

AI companies with lean headcounts and breakthrough potential are attracting sky-high valuations.

Humanoid robotics developer Figure leads the pack in Q3’25 at $104.3M per employee on a $39B valuation, despite reporting no revenue last year (though projecting $9B by 2029). Cognition follows with $98.1M per employee, based on its $10.2B valuation. While the coding AI agent startup has $150M+ in ARR (following its acquisition of Windsurf), this indicates a lofty revenue multiple of ~68x. 

Others topping the quarter’s valuation-per-employee list span the AI model (Anthropic, Mistral AI, Decart, Harmonic), infrastructure (Baseten), and application layers (OpenEvidence,  Sierra, Irregular). 

Whether these valuations prove prescient or overextended will largely depend on whether these companies can deliver on ambitious revenue projections in the years ahead.

RELATED RESOURCES FROM CB INSIGHTS:

• State of Venture Q3’25 Report
• State of Fintech Q3’25 Report
• State of AI Q2’25 Report
• State of Digital Health Q2’25 Report
• State of Tech Exits H1’25

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The quarter underscored a maturing market focused on proven business models. Mid-stage deals captured their highest share in 5 years as mega-rounds declined sharply. Exit momentum strengthened, with M&A deals reaching multi-year highs. Four new unicorns emerged, all leveraging AI across various applications from drug discovery to clinical documentation. 

Key takeaways from the report include:

• Funding continued to decline as deal volume hit a 5-year low. Equity funding dropped 14% QoQ to $4.5B, while deal volume declined 11% to 289 deals in Q3’25 — the lowest quarterly total in the last 5 years, according to CB Insights data. Both metrics have declined for 2 consecutive quarters following a strong Q1, with persistent market uncertainty impacting dealmaking activity.
• Mid-stage deals reached their highest share in 5 years. Mid-stage deals hit 20% in 2025 YTD, up from 18% in 2024. Early-stage deals dropped to 57% from 63%, reflecting investor preference for companies with established business models. Annual median funding is up across all stages, with mid-stage deals rising to $23M in 2025 so far compared to $18.6M in 2024, and late-stage deals reaching $47.5M from $32M.
• M&A activity surged to 55 deals — the most since Q1’23. Exit activity strengthened with 55 M&A deals, the highest quarterly total in over 2 years, signaling significant market consolidation. Three of the top 5 acquisitions involved AI companies with proprietary datasets. Four IPOs occurred, 3 of which were medtech companies, demonstrating strong public market appetite for medical device innovations.
• All 4 new unicorns provide AI-enabled solutions. Four new unicorns were born in Q3’25 (3 in the US, 1 in Asia), doubling the count from Q2’25. All four of these unicorns leverage AI in their core products, from life sciences platforms like Enveda (drug discovery) to clinical tools like Ambience (clinical documentation) and UltraGreen (fluorescence-guided surgery).
• Europe reached a new high in deal share while US saw a decline. Europe-based digital health companies captured 27% of global deal share — the highest in 5 years — with its annual median deal size rising to $4.1M YTD (from $3.4M in 2024). Meanwhile, US deal share fell to 49% — the lowest since Q4’21 — though its median deal size remained strong at $9.5M YTD compared to $6.5M in 2024.

We dive into the trends below.

Download the full report to access comprehensive data and charts on the evolving state of digital health.

Funding continued to decline as deal volume hit a 5-year low 

Digital health equity funding dropped 14% QoQ in Q3’25, while deal volume fell 11% to its lowest level in 5 years with 289 deals. 

The continued deal activity decline reflects broader trends across the venture ecosystem, where deal volume fell to its lowest level since Q4’16. Both funding and deal volume have now declined for two straight quarters since Q1’25. 

Mega-rounds ($100M+) made up just 34% of total funding, down sharply from 47% in Q2’25. The 9 mega-rounds this quarter totaled $1.5B, compared to 10 deals worth $2.5B in the previous quarter. Top deals this quarter included value-based kidney care platform Strive Health ($300M Series D) and clinical workflow tools Ambience ($243M Series C) and OpenEvidence ($210M Series D). 

Despite the pullback in mega-rounds, annual average and median deal sizes continue to rise. The median deal size is $6M in 2025 YTD, up from $5M in 2024, while the average deal size also climbed to $21.5M from $16.3M. This signals that while fewer deals are getting done, investors are writing larger checks to companies they back.

Mid-stage deals reached their highest share in 5 years 

Investors are shifting their focus toward more mature companies. Mid-stage deals captured 20% of all digital health deals in 2025 YTD, up from 18% in 2024 — the highest proportion in 5 years. The shift signals investors’ growing preference for companies with established revenue streams and proven market traction.

Early-stage deals declined to 57% of total activity in 2025 YTD, down from 63% in 2024. Late-stage deals held relatively steady at 11%, up slightly from 10% the previous year.

Deal sizes are up across all stages in 2025. The annual median for mid-stage rounds is $23M YTD, up from $18.6M in 2024 — a 24% increase. Late-stage deals climbed even more dramatically to $47.5M, compared to $32M in 2024, representing a 48% jump. These increases reflect investors concentrating capital in companies that have demonstrated product-market fit and sustainable growth trajectories.

M&A activity surged to 55 deals—the most since Q1’23

Exit activity strengthened significantly in Q3’25, with 55 M&A deals — the highest quarterly total in over 2 years. The surge signals increased market consolidation as larger healthcare players and strategic acquirers shop for proven technologies and market share.

Three of the top 5 acquisitions by valuation involved AI-enabled companies with proprietary models trained on valuable datasets. Iodine Software was acquired by Waystar for $1.2B, bringing clinical intelligence capabilities trained on data representing over a third of US inpatient discharges. Paige, an AI pathology platform with a dataset of more than 25M digitized pathology slides, was acquired by Tempus for $81M. Pathway, which claims one of the largest structured datasets in medicine, was acquired by Doximity for $63M to enhance its AI capabilities for providers’ clinical workflows.

Four IPOs occurred this quarter, matching Q2’25’s total. Notably, 3 of the 4 IPOs were medtech companies — HeartFlow ($1.5B valuation), Carlsmed ($398M), and CapsoVision ($232M) — demonstrating robust public market appetite for medical device innovations. 

The combination of rising M&A activity and steady IPO flow demonstrates that exit pathways are opening for digital health companies, providing crucial validation for the sector after years of constrained liquidity.

All 4 new unicorns are AI-powered solutions from drug discovery to clinical tools

Four new unicorns emerged in Q3’25 — 3 in the US and 1 in Asia — doubling the count from Q2’25. All 4 leverage AI in their core products, spanning various applications from drug discovery to clinical workflows. It underscores how AI has become essential infrastructure for healthcare & life sciences companies. 

The new billion-dollar companies include:

• Singapore-based UltraGreen (valuation: $1.3B) develops an AI-enabled fluorescence-guided surgery platform that provides real-time data during procedures.
• Enveda (valuation: $1B) uses AI to analyze natural molecules for drug discovery.
• Ambience (valuation: $1B) offers AI-powered clinical documentation and medical coding to improve provider workflows. 
• Thyme Care (valuation: $1B) develops a cancer care navigation platform that uses AI to power insights for oncologists’ workflows.

Despite overall funding declines, these valuations demonstrate that AI-enabled solutions addressing critical workflows — from reducing clinician burden to accelerating drug discovery — continue to attract significant investor conviction.

Europe hit a record deal share while the US slipped to a 4-year low

Geographic shifts in digital health dealmaking became pronounced in Q3’25, with Europe capturing 27% of global deal share—the highest in nearly 5 years. Meanwhile, US deals declined to 49%, the lowest share since Q4’21. Asia held steady at 19% this quarter compared to 18% in Q2’25. 

Europe’s momentum extends beyond deal volume. The region’s annual median deal size rose to $4.1M in 2025 YTD, up from $3.4M in 2024 — a 21% increase. The top deals in this region in Q3’25 emphasized solutions spanning imaging and diagnostics (Ultromics, Cyted Health), drug discovery (Charm Therapeutics, Alchemab Therapeutics), and connected care (ViCentra, Sunrise). 6 out of the top 10 deals went to UK-based companies.

Despite declining deal share, the US continues to command significantly larger deal sizes. The US median reached $9.5M in 2025 YTD compared to $6.5M in 2024 — a 46% increase. This suggests US investors are writing fewer but substantially larger checks, concentrating capital in higher-quality opportunities. 

Asia’s deal activity held steady at 19% in Q3’25 compared to 18% the previous quarter. While early- and mid-stage deal share declined in Asia, late-stage deal share has slightly increased to 14% in 2025 YTD. By comparison, late-stage deals only made up 6% in 2022 and have continued to rise since, marking the investors’ cautious approach. The top deals of the quarter were in medtech, including surgical tools (UltraGreen, Ronovo Surgical) and monitoring wearables (Respiree).

For information on reprint rights or other inquiries, please contact reprints@cbinsights.com.

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This cohort cuts through the noise to spotlight 45 companies we expect to have an outsized, lasting impact over the next 5-10 years — from AI infrastructure that powers autonomous enterprise systems to vertical AI applications in healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing that solve operational problems.

Using CB Insights’ proprietary data — including Commercial Maturity, Mosaic, patents, business relationships, and funding — we identified 45 emerging players most likely to have a strong exit in the next 5-10 years.

See every startup in the Future Tech Hotshots 2025 Expert Collection

Key takeaways

• Agent infrastructure is the new frontier. The cohort reveals a decisive bet on agentic AI, with startups like Coval (AI agent testing), Questflow (multi-agent orchestration), and Syncari (agentic master data management) building the foundational tools that enable autonomous AI to operate reliably at scale. These companies are positioned for outsized impact because they’re creating the critical layer to embed AI into workflows — just as cloud infrastructure enabled SaaS, agent infrastructure will enable the next wave of autonomous enterprise software.

• The 45 hotshots have collectively formed over 110 business relationships since 2024. LLM data preparation company LlamaIndex leads the pack (18 partnerships), having partnered with incumbents like Microsoft and Databricks, while blockchain infrastructure API startup Crossmint has forged partnerships with Visa (to enable AI-driven on-chain payments) and Moneygram (to power new stablecoin cross-border payment experience). As these startups scale over the next 5–10 years, this early validation with enterprise incumbents will become harder to displace as customers build workflows around their products.

• Industrial AI is the most promising area, with companies in this space having experienced the highest Mosaic score increase over the last 6 months. This includes GIS platform Felt (+71 points in 6 months) and humanoid developer Persona AI (+57). This momentum reflects investor and customer recognition that industrial AI creates defensible moats through domain-specific datasets that take years to build. Unlike horizontal tools, this vertical expertise can’t be easily replicated, positioning these companies as prime acquisition targets for industrial incumbents seeking AI capabilities over the next 5-10 years.

• Elite management teams cluster in enterprise infrastructure. Top Management Mosaic scores concentrate in enterprise tech, with Lineaje (962/1000; software supply chain security platform), Maven AGI (956/1000; customer service AI agents), ProRata.ai (950/1000; AI-powered search and advertising), and Harmonic (876/1000; mathematical superintelligence) all led by executives hailing from incumbents like Google, Robinhood, and Stripe. These companies signal that the most experienced founders see enterprise infrastructure — not verticalized or consumer AI — as the category where technical depth and execution create the most competitive advantage.

Methodology

We used CB Insights data to analyze hundreds of VC-backed private tech companies with Mosaic scores of 600+ and an early commercial maturity score. 

Our scoring model factors in signals like investor quality, business relationships, Mosaic scores, key people data, and patents. We excluded companies with fewer than 100 employees. Data is as of 9/29/2025.

For information on reprint rights or other inquiries, please contact reprints@cbinsights.com. 

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What began as a niche biohacking movement has evolved into a rapidly growing ecosystem spanning early disease screenings, stem cell preservation, hormone support, and next-gen therapeutics.

Momentum is building as leading companies move from research toward validation. Altos Labs, which raised a whopping $3B in 2022, is advancing preclinical programs and expanding into senescence-targeting therapies through its May acquisition of Dorian Therapeutics. Meanwhile, Sam Altman-backed Retro Biosciences partnered with OpenAI in early 2025 to develop an AI model that helps design proteins capable of repairing cells — a key step toward slowing or reversing aging.  

Consumer demand is also surging. Longevity clinic Neko Health has a 100K+ waitlist for its preventive screenings, while virtual menopause provider Midi Health, which launched its longevity care program in May, projects a $150M revenue run rate in 2025 — up from $60M in 2024. 

Together, these developments reflect the ongoing acceleration toward longevity-focused healthcare, from consumer platforms emphasizing prevention and early detection to therapeutics targeting the biological mechanisms of aging itself.

Using CB Insights’ predictive intelligence on private companies, we identified 84 companies across 8 longevity tech markets. We define longevity tech as technologies whose primary purpose is to support and extend the human healthspan by targeting biological, behavioral, or lifestyle factors.

Please click to enlarge.

This map includes private startups with a CB Insights Mosaic score (a proprietary measure of private company health and growth) of 400 or higher and/or those that have raised funding in the last four years. In line with the definition above, we excluded companies focused on improving the quality of life for the elderly and sick or solely alleviating the symptoms of aging-related diseases. Categories are not mutually exclusive and are not intended to be exhaustive. 

Explore all the longevity markets here

Key takeaways

Longevity clinics are democratizing preventive care as costs drop and datasets scale

Longevity clinics lead all categories on the market map with 37% headcount growth year-over-year, reflecting rapid scaling as consumer demand accelerates. 

These clinics operate on membership models, combining blood biomarker panels, full-body scans, and personalized health consultations. What’s enabling rapid adoption is the convergence of declining diagnostic costs and the creation of longitudinal health datasets — data that tracks the same individuals over time and can reveal patterns typical annual physicals may miss.

Sweden-based Neko Health, co-founded by former Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, has a 100K+ waitlist across its locations in Sweden and the UK. Neko offers full-body scans using 70 sensors for mole mapping and other diagnostics, plus an AI-powered health prediction tool that highlights projected health trajectories for conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The company raised a $260M Series B round at a $1.8B valuation in January 2025.

Other platforms are scaling similar preventive screening models. For example, Prenuvo offers whole-body MRI scans, biomarker testing, brain health assessment, and body composition analysis for $3,999 USD. As of May 2025, it has conducted 130K+ scans. 

Function Health‘s acquisition of MRI platform Ezra in May 2025 signals how these preventive platforms are consolidating services. By combining lab testing with whole-body MRI scans, the merged entity can offer comprehensive screening more cost-effectively while building a unified longitudinal dataset. 

This model captures patients before they enter traditional primary care settings, potentially shifting diagnostic volume away from conventional clinics while creating a new standard for preventive screening.

Check out our longevity clinics market

Silicon Valley investors are betting cellular aging can be reversed 

Investors are funding therapeutics that target the biological processes driving aging — such as cellular damage and protein dysfunction that underlie many age-related diseases. The bet is that by addressing the root causes of aging, a single therapy could help prevent or delay multiple diseases at once.

Silicon Valley has taken notice. BioAge, which develops therapies using AI and genetic data to map aging pathways, raised $297M from leading VC firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and Khosla Ventures before going public in September 2024. 

Two closely linked areas are attracting the most investment: cellular rejuvenation and cellular & epigenetic reprogramming. Rejuvenation repairs existing cells — clearing out damaged ones, boosting mitochondrial function, or delivering regenerative factors like stem cells. Reprogramming goes deeper, resetting a cell’s biological age by changing how genes are expressed. Many companies blend both approaches. 

Altos Labs, which raised a $3B Series A round from ARCH Venture Partners in January 2022, exemplifies this intersection. It uses partial reprogramming therapies to rejuvenate cells without fully converting them into stem cells, thereby preserving the cells’ identities.

Retro Biosciences, which raised $180M from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, also spans both approaches. In August 2025, OpenAI announced GPT-4b micro, an AI model for protein engineering developed with Retro. Using it, Retro redesigned key proteins that reprogram adult cells into stem cells — achieving a 50× boost in reprogramming efficiency and improved DNA repair. It’s also working on a compound to restore autophagy — the cellular process that clears damaged proteins — to help reverse Alzheimer’s disease. The first clinical trial is set to launch by the end of 2025. 

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong’s NewLimit takes a more targeted approach by reprogramming aged cells to behave more like younger ones. Its lead candidate delivers mRNA to aged liver cells to treat alcohol-related liver disease. The company raised $130M in Series B funding in May 2025 from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, and Khosla Ventures.

Explore companies developing longevity therapeutics, ranked by Mosaic

Hormone health platforms are evolving from symptom relief to comprehensive, preventive care in midlife health

As people live longer, midlife health has come into focus — specifically, the role of hormone health in supporting healthspan. 

As we age, hormone levels fluctuate and decline, which can impact physical and cognitive health. Specialized D2C telehealth platforms are now addressing this within the context of overall health, not just isolated symptoms.  

The shift is most visible in menopause care. In May 2025, virtual menopause provider Midi launched its longevity program, AgeWell, which includes hormone therapy, bloodwork, and follow-up consults to help optimize long-term health. Midi raised a $50M Series C round in October 2025. That same month, Hims & Hers launched its perimenopause and menopause offerings, signaling that more D2C platforms see transitional care as critical to overall health.  

This reflects a broader shift of providers increasingly integrating more holistic, comprehensive offerings targeting hormone health rather than just managing symptoms. 

The approach is expanding to men’s health. UK-based Numan, which focuses on testosterone deficiency and other men’s health conditions, raised $60M in funding in July 2025. Its offering includes diagnostics, clinical guidance, and behavioral health coaching. With 650K+ patients treated, it has recently expanded into women’s health and is also growing its B2B offering for employers and insurers to promote preventive health programs.

The integration of hormone therapy into holistic, preventive care is becoming central to extending healthspan,  potentially enhancing bone health, cognitive function, and metabolic resilience as people age. 

Explore companies in the hormone care markets

Looking ahead

As longevity tech matures, two key challenges are top of mind for the sector.

Regulatory pathways remain unclear. Because the FDA doesn’t recognize aging as a disease, many therapeutic companies pursue specific disease indications while their platforms also target underlying aging biology. Clinical trials beginning in late 2025 will provide early safety and efficacy signals, but the path to broader aging-related claims remains undefined. How regulators respond to these therapies will shape commercial strategies across the sector.

Meanwhile, the breadth of longevity tech continues to expand. What began with cellular rejuvenation and senolytics now encompasses hormone optimization, preventive screening clinics, and biological age testing. As adjacent sectors such as sleep and cognitive health adopt longevity positioning, the boundaries will blur further. Stakeholders will need clearer frameworks to distinguish technologies directly targeting aging biology from those supporting healthspan indirectly.

Market descriptions

Virtual menopause care

The virtual menopause care market provides solutions for individuals experiencing perimenopause and menopause. Companies in this market offer telehealth consultations, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) management, symptom tracking platforms, personalized care plans, and educational resources. These platforms connect patients with menopause specialists, provide prescription management, and deliver comprehensive support for managing symptoms like hot flashes, sleep disturbances, mood changes, and hormonal imbalances.

Cellular rejuvenation therapeutics

The cellular rejuvenation therapeutics market includes companies developing therapies that target key hallmarks of aging such as cellular senescence, telomere attrition, and mitochondrial dysfunction. These interventions include senolytics that remove damaged cells, telomere-targeting therapies that maintain chromosome integrity, and mitochondrial treatments that optimize cellular energy production. These therapeutic approaches aim to enhance cellular longevity and function while addressing age-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disorders, and certain cancers through mechanisms that reduce inflammation, improve metabolic regulation, and promote overall cellular health.

Biological age testing

The biological age testing market refers to solutions that use health indicators to determine a person’s biological age. Biological age reflects an individual’s health status based on the functionality of their cells rather than chronological years lived. These tests analyze biomarkers from blood, saliva, or urine samples to assess aging rate and predict health risks. Companies in this market utilize various technologies including AI, epigenetic analysis, and machine learning to provide personalized health insights and recommendations. The market serves both healthcare professionals (B2B) and individual consumers (B2C) seeking to understand aging processes and improve overall health.

Biological cryopreservation

The biological cryopreservation market involves vitrifying human bodies, organs, and other biological matter at low enough temperatures to preserve them and prevent decay. The use cases of cryopreservation include storing stem cells for future healthcare purposes, fertility, organ transplantation, or potentially bringing humans back to life in the future, which is known as cryonics. This market includes companies making antifreeze materials to preserve body parts, stem cell banks, and companies offering cryonics services.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT)

The hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) market consists of chambers and facilities for individuals to breathe 100% oxygen at high pressure. Medical applications include wound healing, treating carbon monoxide poisoning, and recovery from injuries, while wellness applications focus on athletic performance, anti-aging, and general health optimization. The market includes equipment manufacturers providing chambers for medical or home use, clinical service providers operating treatment centers, and wellness facilities offering HBOT as part of comprehensive programs.

Longevity clinics

The longevity clinics market leverages advanced screening and diagnostics in a virtual or in-person clinic to provide individuals with proactive insights into their health. These companies focus on early detection, biomarker tracking, and comprehensive lab and/or imaging services that extend beyond routine physicals. By combining clinical-grade testing with personalized interpretation from physicians, health coaches, and AI-driven platforms, they empower individuals to identify risks early, manage chronic conditions, and optimize long-term wellness.

Cellular & epigenetic reprogramming

The cellular & epigenetic reprogramming market includes biotech companies that are reprogramming the identity of cells and converting them into other cell types for regenerative medicine or drug discovery. This market seeks to target molecular mechanisms associated with aging and age-related diseases through treatments that restore cellular function and vitality. Companies in this market are using a range of advanced technologies from high-throughput screening, AI/ML, to robotics to accelerate the identification and development of targeted therapies using this approach.

Virtual male hormone care

The virtual male hormone care market provides telehealth services and digital platforms that help men optimize their testosterone and other hormone levels through personalized treatment protocols. These companies offer at-home testing, virtual consultations with licensed physicians, and direct-to-consumer delivery of prescription medications such as testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). Platforms offer comprehensive hormone analysis through blood testing, personalized treatment plans, and ongoing monitoring to address symptoms like low energy, decreased libido, mood changes, and reduced muscle mass.

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Deal volume has dropped consistently since 2021, raising the stakes for all players. Emerging startups need clear differentiation and proven traction to secure funding. Investors face greater opportunity costs with every check they write. And incumbents must identify which early-stage vendors will scale — decisions that shape their tech strategies and market position.

In this environment, identifying future leaders matters more than ever. Our annual Digital Health 50 highlights private companies with strong growth potential, focusing on early-stage players with strong market traction, high-quality investors, and growing teams.

From a pool of over 12K companies, we selected 50 based on CB Insights data and predictive signals, including deal activity, partnerships, leadership strength, hiring momentum, investor quality, and our proprietary Mosaic score. Our analysis also incorporated exclusive interviews with software buyers and Analyst Briefings submitted by startups.

Below, we map out the winners based on their core offering and highlight key trends from this year’s cohort. Customers can track all 50 companies in this Expert Collection.

Please click to enlarge.

CBI Customers: Get data on the winners

Key Takeaways on the Digital Health 50

1. Healthcare is shifting from reactive to preventive care, with earlier detection and remote access redefining when and where intervention occurs.

Multiple companies on this year’s list are enabling earlier disease detection through AI-powered diagnostics, comprehensive health screenings, and continuous monitoring. These include cardiovascular disease prediction from ECG data (Anumana), full-body preventive scans (Function Health, Neko Health), and at-home diagnostic testing (PocDoc, Teal Health).

Virtual and telehealth platforms are making preventive and specialty care more accessible by bringing clinical expertise outside hospitals and clinics. These companies provide 24/7 access to specialized services like neurology (Sevaro, Isaac Health), maternal health (Delfina), and nutrition counseling (Nourish, Fay Nutrition), while others are removing geographic barriers through mobile and home-based care (Sprinter Health).

This shift toward prevention resonates with investors as well. Leila Zegna, Founding General Partner at Kindred Capital, a lead investor in Sohar Health, sees it as a strategic imperative:

“We’ve seen an enormous wave of behavior change with patients taking accountability for their own health care outcomes, and we now have the tools to enable people to do that. It is the dream of moving from sick care to true health care…I think those are really promising technologies that we as a society and as a group of venture capitalists should really try and support because they do well and they do good at the same time.”

2. Workflow automation tools are tackling provider burnout and workforce shortages.

Physician burnout costs the US healthcare system an estimated $4.6B annually. It contributes to severe workforce shortages, with 31 out of 35 physician specialties facing ongoing gaps. Rural areas are hit hardest, and by 2037, non-metro areas are projected to face a 60% shortage of physicians.

Many of this year’s Digital Health 50 focus on reducing provider burnout and streamlining workflows. Ambient documentation tools, which automate clinical notes, continue to attract significant capital. Companies Ambience, Freed, and Nabla earned spots on this year’s list, with Ambience and Nabla securing 11 combined business relationships this year and Freed differentiating through its focus on small clinics, now serving nearly 25,000 clinicians.

Beyond documentation, tools addressing hospital operations are also making an impact. AssistIQ reduces the time OR staff spend locating and recording surgical supplies, while CalmWave addresses alarm fatigue. These tools simplify clinical workflows and free up time for meaningful patient interactions.

Investors see this moment as a convergence point. Katheleen Eva of StandUp Ventures, who led AssistIQ’s seed round, notes:

“I think [healthcare] is largely under digitized and that means that there is a huge opportunity because as technology becomes easier to implement and get going, coupled with some of the new AI advancements with respect to computer vision and other sort of multimodal aspects, I think that it’s a combination of the technology is now so powerful and the customer is now ready.”

3. AI is becoming embedded in healthcare, but its regulatory environment demands purpose-built infrastructure.

This year’s 50 companies include 47 developing AI solutions, up from 36 in 2024. They are building the compliance, safety, and governance systems critical to AI adoption in healthcare.

Yet, adoption remains hindered by trust gaps. Sooah Cho, Partner at SignalFire, a lead investor in Qualified Health, points to research showing:

“… a lot of providers, like 84%, had lacked confidence in ability to trust AI, and more than 70% of healthcare employees were just using generative AI tools on their own via undercover use.”

This creates major risks of regulatory liability and potential leakage of protected health information (PHI).

Addressing these concerns requires AI systems purpose-built for healthcare’s unique requirements. Hippocratic AI is developing large language models designed specifically for healthcare with clinical safety validation, recognizing that general-purpose AI can’t meet the stringent requirements of regulated environments where errors have serious consequences.

Equally critical is the infrastructure that enables safe AI deployment. Companies are building platforms for AI governance and oversight (Qualified Health), clinical data abstraction (Carta Healthcare), and patient consent management (HealthEx). These foundational layers ensure compliance, data quality, and the trust necessary for AI adoption in heavily regulated healthcare environments.

4. Voice AI agents are healthcare’s new front door, automating phone-based workflows from patient scheduling to insurance verification calls.

Voice AI is one of the fastest-growing areas in AI development — platforms have raised nearly $400M in funding in 2025 and account for the fastest-growing headcounts among early-stage genAI companies. Healthcare’s heavy reliance on phone communication makes it a natural fit for this technology.

Companies are deploying voice AI agents for appointment scheduling and care navigation (Assort Health), billing inquiries (Hyro), ongoing patient engagement (Kouper Health, Ellipsis Health), and post-discharge follow-ups (Hippocratic AI). These systems handle high-volume routine interactions 24/7, addressing the expense and bottlenecks of traditional call centers so staff can focus on cases that require human expertise.

The technology is also automating time-intensive administrative tasks for providers, including calling insurance companies for benefit verification and prior authorizations (Infinitus Systems, Mandolin) — work that previously consumed significant staff hours. As these systems mature, they’re moving beyond scripted interactions toward adaptive, context-aware agents that handle complex conversations and integrate with existing healthcare IT systems. 

Deep dive into all companies here

Mosaic scores from the 2025 Digital Health 50 winners

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Now, our Book of Scouting Reports offers in-depth analysis on every single one of the Digital Health 50 winners, from care delivery to drug discovery & development.

Combining CB Insights’ proprietary data and AI, scouting reports provide insight into each company’s:

• Funding history
• Headcount
• Key takeaways (including opportunities and threats)
• Commercial Maturity score
• Mosaic score

Download the book to see all 50 scouting reports.

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This summer, the accelerator that spotted OpenAI, Airbnb, and Stripe before they became household names focused its funding on the production-ready AI layer that incumbents will soon race to acquire or replicate.

For strategy teams, Y Combinator represents both a roadmap of where the venture landscape is heading and a curated list of potential acquisition targets, partners, and competitive threats. 

Using CB Insights, we mapped the 165+ companies in the Y Combinator’s 2025 Summer batch across 11 different categories. Then, we analyzed the cohort to make predictions about what this means for the future of enterprise AI. 

Please click to enlarge.

Note: Categories are not mutually exclusive. For more, see the Y Combinator Summer Batch 2025 Expert Collection here. 

Track the 165+ startups in Y Combinator’s newest cohort

Key Takeaways  

• Voice AI is expanding into regulated industries. 16 companies in the batch are building specialized voice AI systems across use cases. Beyond just consumer assistants (April, Blue), startups in this batch are producing enterprise-grade systems managing complex, regulated interactions, notably in financial services (Altur, Veritus Agent, Qualify.bot, Wayline) — where compliance barriers are highest. Meanwhile, startups like Liva AI and Panels are building voice training data, as proprietary datasets that general-purpose models can’t replicate, creating defensive moats for companies employing voice AI.

• Startups are pushing deeper into software development with specialized solutions. With 20 software development companies in this summer’s Y Combinator batch, the category represents the largest, with coding agents still showing the strongest revenue traction among all AI agent types. However, new entrants are expanding beyond the code generation that enterprises already use. For example, Stagewise (frontend agents for codebases) and Interfere (autonomous de-bugging) are moving beyond just code generation to handle the complete development lifecycle, from writing production-ready code to testing on physical hardware. 

• Y Combinator is betting on the full agent stack, signaling the technology has moved from experimentation to implementation. Nearly 50% of YC’s Summer 2025 cohort offers AI agents, with 14 of those companies focusing specifically on agent infrastructure needed for deployment — spanning agent evaluation (AgentHub), de-bugging (Fulcrum Research), and monitoring (Mohi). Meanwhile, startups like Nozomio Labs (building context augmentation layers for agents) and Imprezia (creating AI-native ad networks) are pushing beyond traditional tooling into novel applications. As agents become table stakes for enterprises, infrastructure tools will become increasingly critical for building and managing reliability and performance at scale.
• The AI infrastructure focus is shifting from capability to efficiency. Companies like Stellon Labs (tiny frontier models for edge devices), Herdora (low-latency GPU inference for voice AI), and DeepAware AI (AI data center energy optimization) signal that deployment constraints — not model performance — are now the primary barrier to AI adoption. Solutions focusing on efficiency constraints like latency, energy costs, and edge deployment are critical for commercial AI deployment.

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The surge was fueled by outsized mega-rounds to new decacorns — companies with $10B+ valuations — and the continued dominance of AI, which accounted for 51% of all funding and 22% of deals in Q3’25.

However, funding growth was far from uniform across sectors. Retail and healthcare saw quarterly declines, while fintech remained flat. The data suggests that investors are pulling back from traditional industries and doubling down on emerging technologies, especially AI.

Below, we break down the top stories from this quarter’s report, including:

• Funding surpassed $90B for the 4th consecutive quarter
• AI is on track to capture over 50% of total annual venture funding for the first time 
• Decacorns raise record funding, as quarterly tech mega-rounds reach a new high
• Humanoid robots captured the most deals for the 2nd quarter in a row
• Exits are rebounding despite companies staying private longer

Let’s dive in.

Download the full report to access comprehensive data and charts on the evolving state of venture across sectors, geographies, and more.

Top stories in Q3’25

1. Funding surpassed $90B for the 4th consecutive quarter

Venture funding exceeded $90B for the fourth consecutive quarter, reaching $95.6B in Q3’25. The year-to-date total surpassed $310B, marking the highest annual figure since 2022.

Deal count, however, fell to its lowest point since Q4’16, underscoring an ongoing trend: investors are writing bigger checks to fewer companies. This pattern has persisted for over a year.

AI maintained its stronghold on the venture market, capturing $47.8B in Q3, for 50% of total funding and 22% of deals. Both figures represent the second-highest quarterly levels on record, confirming AI as the primary driver of venture strength.

While the largest rounds of the quarter went to leading AI players, such as Anthropic and OpenAI, other standout fundraisers included:

• China Fusion Energy, which raised $1.6B to advance fusion reactor engineering and commercialization.
• DBG Health raised $1B to provide a range of healthcare services.
• PsiQuantum, a developer of photonic quantum computers, raised a $1B Series E round.

Investors are also fueling a resurgence in hard tech — particularly in aerospace, defense, and advanced computing: 

• Aerospace funding reached $14.1B through Q3’25 and is expected to reach $18.9B by year-end — surpassing its 2021 record by 20%. 
• Defense tech raised a record $13.7B, driving the emergence of a new military-startup complex. 
• Quantum computing tripled its previous annual funding record, reaching $3.7B.

The data points to a venture market in transition — one defined by larger checks, fewer deals, and a growing concentration of capital in AI and hard tech.

2. AI is on track to capture over 50% of total annual venture funding for the first time

AI companies are capturing a record share of funding and deals this year, at 51% of funding and 22% of deals. They also claimed 7 of the 10 largest rounds this quarter.

The US is proving especially dominant in AI, attracting 85% of total AI funding and 53% of deals in 2025. Four of the 7 largest rounds this quarter were based in the US: Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, and Figure.

Funding to AI-enabled companies is also taking a significant share of traditional sectors:

• Retail tech declined to $5.4B, its lowest quarter since Q3’24, with AI startups raising 36% of annual funding.
• Digital health fell to $4.5B, marking its weakest quarter since Q4’24, with AI startups representing 63% of the sector so far this year.
• Fintech remained flat at $10.9B quarterly, with AI firms accounting for 23% of total fintech funding in Q3’25, its 2nd highest quarter on record.

AI is creating a clear split in the venture ecosystem, with AI startups capturing an outsized share of capital and mega-rounds, while non-AI startups face tighter funding conditions.

The rapid rise in AI valuations raises questions about long-term sustainability, as many companies are priced for winner-take-all outcomes across categories, particularly in saturated markets like coding agents & copilots, where dozens of similar startups compete as margins tighten.

The current environment reflects a flight to quality. While AI continues to drive momentum and capital concentration, the market is gradually shifting toward fundamentals — where execution and efficiency, not just promise, will determine which companies justify their valuations.

3. Decacorns raise record funding, as quarterly tech mega-rounds reach a new high

The venture landscape is moving beyond unicorns to decacorns — companies valued at $10B or more. Decacorns raised a record $94.5B through Q3’25, surpassing the previous record of $46.3B in 2024.

However, the number of decacorn deals is almost half as much as it was in 2021 when it reached $45.5B — from 60 deals to 32 this year — revealing the high funding concentration among the very largest companies — primarily leading AI startups.

AI leaders raising at decacorn valuations include developers xAI, Scale, and Perplexity, defense startups Anduril and Helsing, and fintech company Ramp.

Beyond decacorns, $100M+ mega-rounds for tech companies also hit record levels. September saw 52 tech mega-rounds in total, with 70% of capital allocated to companies focused on making AI infrastructure more affordable at scale.

Many AI infrastructure companies that raised mega-rounds in Q3’25 have already generated substantial revenue. Invisible Technologies reached $134M in 2024, Baseten reportedly grew 10x YoY, while Rebellions projected $72M in revenue. This shift separates real businesses from overvalued concepts as scrutiny intensifies.

Decacorns and mega-rounds are defining the current venture landscape. The market is bifurcating not only between AI companies and the rest, but also between decacorns and mega-round recipients vs. everyone else.

We expect the gap between well-funded companies and the rest of the venture ecosystem to continue widening as capital concentrates among market leaders who are building critical infrastructure and enterprise solutions.

4. Humanoid robots captured the most deals for the 2nd quarter in a row

AI markets dominated the most active deals in Q3’25, including AI-powered humanoids, AI software applications, and autonomous driving. 

Industrial humanoid robots captured 17 deals — more than any other market — continuing momentum from Q2’25, when it also led with 23 deals. New humanoid robot unicorns also emerged — Zhiyuan Robot and Unitree Robotics — bringing the total to 4.

Humanoid deal activity extended outside of the industrial sector in Q3. Healthcare humanoid robots secured 7 deals, ranking just outside of the top 10 markets. Figure led both the industrial and healthcare humanoid markets, raising a $1B Series C round at a $39B valuation, making it the 9th most valuable private company globally.

Investor interest in humanoid robots is driven partly by physical AI enabling new robotics capabilities, giving humanoids commercial promise that was not previously possible.

But despite deal activity and future potential, humanoids remain years away from widespread deployment. Developers still face fundamental challenges with inference, dexterity, reliability, and cost, which limit initial use cases to structured environments like factories and warehouses with a controlled and predictable set of tasks.

Autonomous driving showed particular strength among markets powered by physical AI. Both autonomous trucking systems and autonomous driving systems captured 8 deals each, ranking among the most active markets by deal count, alongside prominent AI categories such as coding AI agents, AI agent development platforms, and LLM developers.

5. Exits are rebounding despite companies staying private longer

Exits are recovering, but the numbers also reveal a fundamental shift in how long startups remain private before going public or getting acquired.

M&A and IPO activity both rebounded in Q3’25, partly driven by maturing AI startups that created more exit opportunities. M&A deals rose 8% from last quarter to 2,324 — the highest total since Q3’22. AI M&A activity remained elevated at 172 deals, contributing to the increase.

Fintech M&A contributed heavily to the rebound, rising to 249 deals — its highest level since Q1’22. Healthcare M&A also hit its strongest level since Q1’23, with 3 of the top 10 M&A transactions going to healthcare companies.

IPO activity climbed 45% from 95 to 138 — the highest quarterly total since Q3’23. AI and fintech contributed to the uptick, but software companies dominated the largest offerings. The biggest IPOs went to Figma and Klarna. The only hardware exception was China-based Best Semi, a semiconductor equipment manufacturer.

The Q3 exit rebound reflects improving conditions and suggests a broader recovery ahead, especially if interest rates continue to decline.

Despite increased exit activity, companies are staying private longer, with the time to exit rising from 12.2 years in 2015 to 15.9 years in 2025.

The ability to raise at decacorn valuations while staying private removes the pressure to go public for capital. Companies can now scale to a massive size, hire top talent through liquid secondary markets, and maintain founder control — all without the quarterly earnings pressure or regulatory burdens associated with going public.

Exit levels are recovering, suggesting that the market is normalizing, but the structural shift toward longer private tenures is likely to remain. The venture lifecycle is undergoing a fundamental change, with companies now possessing viable paths to scale privately that did not exist a decade ago.

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RELATED RESOURCES FROM CB INSIGHTS:

• State of Venture Q2’25 Report
• State of Fintech Q3’25 Report
• State of AI Q2’25 Report
• State of Digital Health Q2’25 Report
• State of Insurtech Q2’25 Report
• State of Tech Exits H1’25

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We’ve used generative AI, combined with our proprietary data on these companies and their markets, to create the following scouting reports — in just one click on CB Insights.

CB Insights customers can download the book using the sidebar and track all companies using the Expert Collection.

At the conference, be sure to:

• Visit the ITC Discovery Desk powered by CB Insights to speak with a strategist and receive full SWOT analyses to help determine who to meet and why.
• Attend the unveiling of the Insurtech 50 report, featuring the world’s most promising insurtech startups, on Thursday at 11am Pacific in Oceanside Ballroom B.
• Claim your 10 days of free predictive private market intelligence now.

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In September, private companies globally raised 1,400+ early-stage rounds (noting this total will rise as more deals are published retroactively). Over 25% of startups that raised rounds are building AI-enabled products and services.

Download the full report to access comprehensive CB Insights data on early-stage activity, including top investors & deals, valuation data, and our predictive signals. Below, we highlight notable trends to watch.

Emerging trends & categories to watch

Click the links to see underlying deal activity. Categories are not mutually exclusive. 

Review the full deal dataset

AI agents

Similar to last month, companies targeting AI agent applications raised over 50 deals (out of 1,485). Key trends to note include: 

• “Smart Money” is all in on AI agents: The top 25 VCs identified by CB Insights backed 13 AI agent startups in September. This represents nearly 20% of all of the early-stage activity from these VCs in the month. Focuses include security (Akto, Fabrix Security, Terra Security) and governance, risk, and compliance (Geordie, Zania), indicating enterprise adoption and risk management are key investment priorities. 
• Customer service is one of the most established use cases but is still seeing early-stage traction: AI agents handling customer service, support tickets, and user interactions represent one of the largest early-stage agent categories in September (8+ deals). Support operations have clear unit economics, high volume repetitive tasks, and direct cost savings compared to human agents, driving continued activity here. Top companies to watch based on Mosaic scores include Doo (Mosaic: 747) and Rauda AI (Mosaic: 687). 
• Emerging voice AI sector: Voice and phone agents are attracting dedicated investment (6 deals, 11% of agent activity) as investors bet on solutions that can tackle the unique technical challenges of voice interactions (i.e., real-time latency requirements, natural speech processing, emotional intelligence, etc.). Confido Health and Prosper, for example, are focused on healthcare applications. Meanwhile, Vida and Vaani Research are building infrastructure to develop voice AI/phone agents. Review the voice AI development platforms market to compare 30+ vendors in the space.

Robotics

Companies building robots, and the systems that power them, raised over 70 deals in the month. 

Within robotics, defense & security applications led early-stage activity (17 deals, 24% of total robotics activity), reflecting geopolitical tensions driving investment in autonomous defense systems and surveillance.

Other notable traction is in foundation models and operating systems for robots, as investors bet on horizontal platforms (4 deals, 6%):

• The leading September round in this category went to DYNA, which raised a $120M Series A. The company is ranked as a “challenger” in our robot foundation model developers market. 
• Another highlight is InOrbit, which focuses on robot orchestration and was founded by Florian Pestoni and Julian Cerutti, who have experience at a range of large tech companies, including Google, Atlassian, Meta, and IBM. The founders’ strong pedigree is reflected in the company’s CB Insights Management strength score, which ranked the highest of all the companies raising early-stage deals in September.

Management strength score

CB Insights’ Management strength scores (out of 1,000) the founding and management team’s prior achievements and likelihood of achieving future success, like a high-value exit. 

Especially at the earliest stages of the startup lifecycle, the strength of the management team serves as a key signal of potential. 

AI for scientific discovery & materials development 

Three of the largest early-stage rounds of the quarter went to companies looking to accelerate scientific discovery and materials development with AI: 

• Periodic Labs ($300M Series A at $1B valuation)
• Lila Sciences ($235M Series A at $1.23B valuation)
• CuspAI ($100M Series A at $520M valuation) 

Both Periodic Labs and Lila Sciences are also building “autonomous labs” — with AI designing, conducting and iterating on experiments. All 3 companies are operating at Commercial Maturity level 2/5 (Validating), indicating they’re still testing and refining their products.

Methodology

This report includes equity early-stage financings (convertible note, angel, pre-seed, seed, Series A) to private companies in August 2025. We excluded companies that are later-stage that raised an angel round or convertible note in the month. Categorization based on company descriptions.

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Combining CB Insights’ proprietary data and AI, scouting reports provide insight into each company’s:

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We recently presented CB Insights’ data on how AI is elevating customer engagement across insurance at an InsurTech NY-hosted executive roundtable.

Here are the key takeaways:

1. It’s early days for AI-enabled customer engagement, so insurance companies have a rare opportunity to define what good looks like.
2. AI-enabled customer engagement will soon be table stakes, accelerating as partner ecosystems emerge and mature.
3. Agentic commerce offers insurance companies opportunities to capture new sales channels.

Download the 40+ slides to reveal insights like:

• Agentic commerce offers a clear opportunity to shape the future of embedded insurance, signaled by the emergence of partnerships with companies like eBay and Priceline.
• A new tech stack now powers agentic operations across industries, and insurance is no exception. AI agent oversight offers an opportunity to support compliance activities.
• AIG’s actions to develop its “agentic ecosystem” signal an imperative for business growth.

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Combining CB Insights’ proprietary data and AI, scouting reports provide insight into each company’s:

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Combining CB Insights’ proprietary data and AI, scouting reports provide insight into each company’s:

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BCIs, which interpret neural activity to enable direct communication between the brain and external systems like computers or robotic limbs, have attracted record investment this year. Funding tripled to $867M from 2024, driven largely by Neuralink‘s $650M Series E round at a $9.7B valuation. 

Clinical validation is also gaining momentum, with over 70 clinical studies using BCIs currently recruiting patients. Adding to this progress, Precision Neuroscience received the first FDA clearance in March 2025 for BCI use in brain-mapping during neurosurgery, marking an early regulatory breakthrough.

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In August, private companies globally raised 1,140+ early-stage rounds (noting this total will rise as more deals are published retroactively). Investors are backing startups targeting applications from AI agents to aerospace manufacturing.

Download the full report to access comprehensive CB Insights data on early-stage activity, including top investors & deals, valuation data, and our predictive signals. 

Leading industries & tech areas

Startups targeting healthcare & life science, financial services, and enterprise software led early-stage funding activity in August.

AI is ubiquitous across the landscape. Over 30% of startups that raised rounds are building AI-enabled products and services. Companies targeting AI agent applications in particular raised over 50 deals. 

Other focuses include blockchain/crypto (50+ deals) and robotics (50+ deals). FieldAI, which is developing foundation models for robots, raised a $314M Series A at a $2B valuation — the largest early-stage round of the month. 

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Emerging & frontier tech categories to watch

More niche categories (those with fewer than 20 deals in the month) show a clear focus on “hard tech” across areas like space, quantum computing, and fusion energy. 

Click the links to see underlying deal activity. Categories are not mutually exclusive. 

• Satellite technology (13 deals): The commercialization of low Earth orbit is accelerating with decreasing launch costs and miniaturization enabling new satellite constellations for communications, Earth observation, and more. SpaceX’s success has opened the door for specialized players, like earth observation platform SkyFi. 12 out of the 13 companies that raised early-stage deals in this category in August are based outside of the US in countries like China and India.
• Space services & manufacturing (9 deals): The emerging space economy is driving activity across areas like transportation & logistics from space to earth (Orbital Paradigm) and in space (Orbital Operations). Companies such as Orbital Matter and Catalyx Space are leveraging microgravity to manufacture materials, components, and pharmaceuticals in space. 
• Quantum computing & secure communications (7 deals): Startups are developing quantum hardware, software, and infrastructure to tackle complex problems and keep data safe in the era of quantum technology. Examples include superconducting processors (QuamCore), quantum-inspired software for industries like finance and logistics (QMill), and quantum-secure satellite networks (olee).
• Fusion (4 deals): The AI boom has created a $500B power infrastructure gap for data centers, triggering a race to secure nuclear technology. Fusion represents a longer-term breakthrough that could revolutionize power generation. Startups like Canada-based Fusion Fuel Cycles and Japan-based MiRESSO are focused on producing enabling materials and tech.

Top companies by Management strength score

Especially at the earliest stages of the startup lifecycle, the strength of the management team serves as a key signal of potential. 

Using CB Insights’ Management strength score — which scores the founding and management team’s prior achievements and likelihood of achieving future success, like a high-value exit — these are the top 3 startups in this month’s cohort: 

• Perle (976 out of 1,000) — Founder Ahmed Rashman was previously Head of Supply and Growth at Scale, and has experience across a range of large tech companies including Amazon and Oracle. 
• Lettuce (973) — Founder Ran Harpaz was founding CTO of Globality (valued at $1B in 2019) and former CTO at Hippo Insurance (went public in 2021). 
• Lorikeet (858) — Co-founder Steve Hind previously worked in product at Stripe for 3 years, while co-founder Jamie Hall was a software engineer at Google for nearly 7 years. 

See the rest of the top 10 by Management strength in the full report. 

Methodology

This report includes equity early-stage financings (convertible note, angel, pre-seed, seed, Series A) to private companies in August 2025. We excluded companies that are later-stage that raised an angel round or convertible note in the month. Categorization based on company descriptions.

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Among the top 50 private companies globally, the US and China account for 86% of the list, while AI startups represent 40%. These companies are reshaping industries and, in some cases, surpassing their public market competitors in valuation. 

OpenAI is reportedly poised to hit a roughly $500B valuation — putting it closer to the ranks of big tech than any other startup. At the same time, the current top 50 companies’ combined valuation represents under half of Nvidia’s current market cap of $4.3T, underscoring the relative scale of public tech giants.

Using CB Insights data, we analyzed the top 50 most valuable private companies globally to identify where value creation is happening in private markets. Below are the key patterns emerging from the group.

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Key takeaways

• The United States and China dominate the global unicorn landscape, representing 86% of the top 50 companies. The US leads with 35 companies (70%), while China contributes 8 companies (16%), showing how concentrated tech innovation and capital formation remains within these two tech regions. The remaining 6 countries — Australia, France, Germany, Singapore, Sweden and the UK — each have only 1-2 representing companies.
• AI companies represent 40% of the top 50, signaling the market’s confidence in AI as a primary driver of economic value. These companies range from the big names building foundation models like OpenAI and Anthropic to specialized players tackling applications like defense systems (Helsing, Anduril).
• Abundant private funding enables companies to delay going public while continuing to scale. Today, startups are going public an average of 16 years after being founded, 4 years later than just a decade ago. Databricks recently surpassed its public competitor Snowflake in valuation ($100B) at its recent $1B Series K round. Meanwhile, ByteDance ($300B valuation), generated more revenue than Meta in Q1’25 while staying private. With plenty of private capital available and employees able to sell shares on secondary markets, companies can grow much larger without going public.
• Secondary transactions are increasingly driving valuations, with 7 consecutive quarters of YoY growth in transaction activity among VC-backed companies. Recent secondary sales at companies like Canva (valued at $42B, up from $32B in 2024), Revolut (valued at $75B, up from $45B), and OpenAI’s upcoming $10.3B secondary sale at a rumored $500B valuation demonstrate this trend. As startups stay private for longer, secondary sales are providing both liquidity and fresh valuations. 

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