The market is already worth more than $2B, and appetite for these tools continues to accelerate. New players are flooding in: IDE startups are launching their own agents, 12 brand-new coding AI agent companies have been founded since 2024, and every major cloud provider and LLM developer has been rolling out offerings.

So who’s leading today, and who’s gaining ground fastest?

Using CB Insights’ revenue data, we measured the current size of the market and estimated market shares for players in the space. Download our book of scouting reports for an in-depth analysis of every private player with disclosed revenue in the market.

If you are active in the coding AI agent & copilots market and want to submit your company’s revenue data, please reach out to researchanalyst@cbinsights.com. 

See all coding AI agent & copilot companies ranked by revenue

Key takeaways

• Coding AI agent & copilot is a highly concentrated market, with the top 3 players currently holding just over 70% of the market. GitHub (owned by Microsoft) leads with an estimated $800M in ARR generated from its AI-powered coding offerings, demonstrating the power of superior distribution in the agentic AI space. With close to 40% of players showing low commercial maturity scores (emerging or validating), we expect leaders to be challenged and risk losing market share unless they turn to M&A to maintain their position — and technological edge.
• Explosive growth creates a dynamic leaderboard, with companies reaching and surpassing $100M in ARR at record pace. For example, Anysphere was generating $500M in ARR by June this year, up from $100M as of December 2024, a level it reached just 12 months after launching its product. Similarly, Anthropic scaled its AI coding solution (Claude Code) from 0 to $400M in ARR in just 5 months. This is adding more pressure on leaders as it highlights the low barriers to scale in this market, with new entrants able to win material share very quickly.
• The pie keeps getting bigger, with companies projecting top-line growth of 12x on average this year. Lovable recently said it expects to reach $250M in ARR by year-end, up from $10M at the start of 2025, and projects $1B by mid-2026 — a 100x increase in just 18 months. However, higher costs and reluctance from enterprises to adopt usage-based pricing could slow growth in the space or require significantly more funding to stay in the race.

Market overview

The coding AI agents & copilots market consists of AI-powered solutions that help software developers write, fix, test, and maintain code. These tools offer features like intelligent code completion, natural language code generation, automated testing, code review, debugging assistance, and technical debt management. Many solutions integrate directly with popular IDEs and development environments, while others operate as standalone agents or chat interfaces. The market includes both general-purpose coding assistants and specialized tools for specific programming languages, frameworks, or development workflows.

We count close to 100 players in this market, with a mix of early-commercial-maturity pure players (~40%), recently minted unicorns such as Anysphere and Lovable, leading LLM developers, and most big tech companies.

They have raised a combined $2.1B in equity funding so far this year, already surpassing the $2B raised last year. Traction in the market is also reflected in its average Mosaic score (a measure of company health) of 633, well above the 370 average across all private companies.

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AI companies drove the surge, accounting for half of all mega-rounds. Many are building foundation models tailored to complex real-world use cases like robotics and healthcare.

Using CB Insights’ Business Graph, our monthly Book of Scouting Reports offers an in-depth analysis of every private tech company that has raised a funding round of $100M or more, to spotlight where capital is concentrating, which startups are gaining momentum, and who’s shaping the next wave of market disruption.

Download the book to see all 50 scouting reports.

Key takeaways from July’s mega-rounds include: 

• Clinical AI moves from development to scaling, with both Aidoc (a clinical AI foundation model developer) and Ambience (an AI medical scribe) having raised mega-rounds last month to build upon their early success and scale across more health systems. Last month also saw OpenEvidence and Tala Health raise $100M+ rounds to bring agentic AI solutions to clinicians, with the latter joining the fast-growing AI unicorn list. 
• Investors keep betting big on the next wave of the AI boom, physical AI. Recent commercial breakthroughs in the autonomous vehicle space and heightened interest in the humanoid space are driving capital toward physical AI infrastructure. This includes robotics foundation models (Genesis AI, TARS), and hardware platforms for embodied AI model training (Galaxea AI). China-based Meituan led both the $100M Series A extension in Galaxea AI and the $125M Seed round in TARS, as it doubles down on physical AI investments.
• AI newcomers are openly taking on tech giants. Half of last month’s mega-rounds went to AI companies, which accounted for 7 of the 13 new unicorns minted during that time. Some of these companies are directly targeting incumbents such as Reka AI which positions itself as a lower-cost alternative to OpenAI or Anthropic, and Perplexity which targets Google‘s core search business with its new browser product. 
• Fintech is minting a new class of financial services challengers.  Fintech companies accounted for more mega-round deals than any other vertical in July, including 2 of the top 4 largest rounds. Ramp’s valuation jumped from $16B to $22.5B in mere weeks, while Bilt more than tripled in value, from $3.3B to $10.8B. Beyond fundraising, fintech leaders are pursuing aggressive expansion strategies. iCapital raised $820M last month to accelerate its acquisition strategy focused on seizing the private markets opportunity. 

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To differentiate themselves, top German firms like High-Tech Grunderfonds are aggressively pursuing deals in high-growth areas like healthcare and AI that position them to capture outsized returns. 

Using CB Insights data, we analyzed which investors are building the strongest foundations for portfolio success. Below, see our picks for the top 50 venture investors in Germany, key takeaways on the list, and a note on methodology.

Venture firms — make sure we’re representing your full portfolio by reaching out to analyst@cbinsights.com to set up a review of CB Insights’ coverage of your investments.

CBI customers: Track these investors’ deals in real time

Key takeaways

• High-Tech Grunderfonds leads our ranking with 166 startup deals since 2023 (as of 6/30/2025). Of those, nearly one-fifth (or 32 deals) went to AI companies — including AI-powered precision medicine platform Aignostics and AI development startup Neural Concept.
• DTCP leads in terms of the quality of its recent investments. Its investments since 2023 have a higher average Mosaic score (797 out of 1,000) than any other investor on the list. Top performers in its portfolio include Cohere (890; $1.4B in total funding and backing from the likes of Nvidia, Oracle, and Salesforce Ventures) and Quantum Systems (874; partnerships with Sony and Airbus).
• Global Founders Capital shows the best exit track records, backing 54 startups since 2018 that went on to exit. Of those, at least 11% of exits are AI companies, including AI-powered quality management platform Klaus (acquired by Zendesk) and personalization AI startup Dynamic Yield (acquired by Mastercard). The firm recently transitioned to exclusively investing from Rocket Internet’s €300M balance sheet rather than operating as an independent venture firm.

Methodology

We used CB Insights data to review the dealmaking activity of hundreds of Germany-based investors that fund private-market startups in exchange for equity, and rank them based on the strength and performance of their portfolios.

Our scoring model factors in deal volume between Q1’23 and Q2’25; unicorns in investors’ portfolios that were backed prior to a $1B valuation; and the share of portfolio companies invested in since 2018 that have gone on to exit. We exclude government vehicles, startup accelerators, incubators. 

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Their commercial breakthroughs are sparking an industry-wide race, with Tesla and Uber scrambling to catch up — Uber recently partnered with Lucid and Nuro to launch its own robotaxi fleet.

This revival is creating massive demand for simulation and training solutions — essential components of AV development that generative AI has made faster and more cost-effective. 

AV simulation and training market leader Applied Intuition exemplifies this opportunity, having just raised $600M at a $15B valuation and counting 18 of the top 20 automotive OEMs as clients — a strong signal of surging demand.

The appeal is obvious: external simulation offers a cost-effective alternative to in-house development for major OEMs like GM and Hyundai, which have struggled with safety issues and commercialization delays in their self-driving units.

As AVs accelerate their shift from experimentation to deployment, simulation providers are expanding beyond passenger vehicles into high-value sectors like defense and industrials.

Using CB Insights’ Mosaic score, which measures a company’s health, we identified the most promising autonomous driving training and simulation providers, revealing critical signals for the industry’s expansion into new AV use cases (see graphic below). 

If you are an autonomous vehicle simulation and training startup and want to be featured in our research, please reach out to analystbriefing@cbinsights.com to submit your data. 

See the full list of autonomous vehicle simulation & testing companies

• Industrials and defense are the new battlegrounds. Top Mosaic score movers target AV applications beyond the already competitive passenger vehicles market. Both Cognata and  Applied Intuition offer defense-specific autonomous vehicle solutions, with the latter recently strengthening its position in this space by acquiring EpiSci, a company specializing in national security autonomy. Others like Kognic and Parallel Domain focus on industrial applications, including robotics and drones. 
• OEM relationships create strategic moats. The top 5 market leaders all have relationships with OEMs and hardware manufacturers. Since 2022, 74% of OEM relationships have gone to the top 5 players in the space. The bottom 5 players account for just 12% of these partnerships, and most have decreased Mosaic scores over the past year. 
• NVIDIA emerges as a key enabler. Oxa and Foretellix are using NVIDIA’s large world models to strengthen AI training. The tech giant has partnerships with 3 of the top 5 market players, positioning NVIDIA is a likely winner of growth in this space. 

As the autonomous vehicle arms race continues, momentum will favor the companies diversifying beyond passenger vehicles. Established passenger vehicle players already leverage proprietary AI simulation tools, pushing new entrants to other applications such as defense and aerospace — with growing demand for autonomous guidance simulation in robotics and drones. Monitor strategic partnership activity to identify the likely winners in each AV application.  

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Based on CB Insights Commercial Maturity data, 42% of these companies are already deploying or commercializing their solutions (deploying, scaling, established), with a few leaders already crossing $100M in ARR. This includes Anysphere’s Cursor ($500M in ARR) as well as Windsurf and Moveworks, both of which reached $100M ARR shortly before being acquired.

This commercial traction signals the rapid adoption of specific types of AI agents by enterprises and who the early market winners are. The companies generating the most revenue often target workflow-heavy sectors where AI delivers immediate ROI — primarily coding and enterprise workflows. 

We expect these categories to continue driving adoption (and revenue), and predict the enterprise AI agents & copilots space will generate close to $13B in annual revenue by the end of 2025, up from $5B in 2024. 

Using CB Insights revenue data, we identified the top 20 private startups offering AI agents as their primary offering and analyzed how they are rewriting the VC funding playbook (see below graphic).

If you are an AI agent startup and want to submit your company’s revenue data, please reach out to analystbriefing@cbinsights.com. 

See the top AI agent startups ranked by revenue here

Key takeaways

• Top revenue-generating AI agent startups are just under 5 years old on average, with 50% of them having been founded in the last 3 years. This signals how quickly these AI-native companies are scaling and monetizing their products with recent breakouts including Cursor ($500M revenue, founded 2022), Mercor ($100M, founded 2023), and Lovable ($100M, founded 2023).
• Customer service AI agents command the highest valuation premiums, with an average revenue multiple of 127x compared to 52x on average across all top 20 AI agents by revenue. This valuation gap signals that investors are betting on aggressive revenue acceleration in customer service AI, driven by the sector’s universal market applicability and the expectation that businesses will rapidly replace human support teams with AI agents. 
• Some AI agent startups are already as capital-efficient as big tech companies. Mercor ($4.5M revenue per employee) and Cursor ($3.2M per employee) already surpass the likes of Microsoft ($1.8M per employee, FY 2024) and Meta ($2.2M per employee, FY 2024), and rivaling Nvidia‘s efficiency levels ($3.6M per employee, FY 2025). 

However, as new entrants enter the AI agent market at a record pace — both startups and tech giants pivoting into AI agents — the question becomes whether these early revenue wins can translate into defensible market positions. 

We expect competitive moats to emerge through proprietary data advantages, deep vertical specialization, and the creation of switching costs through deep integration into customers’ critical business workflows. 

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Investors and big tech alike are betting that voice will be the dominant interface for interacting with AI, enabling a move away from traditional browser and mobile interfaces toward natural conversational interaction. 

Recent technological advancements have made this vision increasingly viable, with voice capabilities now delivering near-instantaneous responses with sub-300ms latency that matches human conversational flow. This speed breakthrough is critical to unlocking voice AI’s full potential, as Chris McCann at Race Capital, a backer of PlayAI, explains:

“Voice is how people naturally communicate – but most voice AI systems still sound robotic or have high latency in their responses. We believed fast, expressive voice tech would be critical to making AI feel human and useful in the enterprise, especially for IVR, customer support, and sales.”

With voice becoming an increasingly fundamental modality for the AI-powered future and big tech competing to win the AI device race, owning the building blocks that shape human-AI communication is becoming mission-critical. Expect a wave of acquisitions as companies scramble to secure voice AI capabilities.

Using CB Insights’ Mosaic score which measures company health, we identified the top M&A targets in the voice AI space and what makes them such compelling targets (see below graphic).

See the full list of voice AI startups ranked by Mosaic score

• Voice synthesis platform ElevenLabs tops the market with a Mosaic score of 955, making it an attractive acquisition target. Proprietary voice generation technology is becoming as valuable as foundational AI models, positioning the highest-quality voice synthesis as core infrastructure rather than a feature add-on.
• Enterprise-focused Cresta delivers immediate ROI, with some customers reporting 50% cost reductions in contact centers, and positioning it perfectly for companies looking to leverage voice AI to immediately impact enterprise productivity.
• Ultra-low latency startups like Cartesia have an edge, as their ability to deliver sub-100ms capabilities positions them as essential for truly conversational AI experiences that matches human conversation patterns. 

Investors also see companies owning the full-stack as a having key technological advantage compared to those relying on third-party components. This was part of the rationale for investing into PlayAI according to Chris McCann of Race Capital:

“Most voice AI startups rely on open source or other third-party components. PlayAI built the full stack in-house—their own TTS engine, real-time streaming, and sub-100ms latency. That gave them full control and a clear technical edge, which let them power real-time agents for support, sales, and IVR across several Fortune 500s.”

As the AI arms race continues, acquisitions will continue to be focused on talent, tech, and infrastructure rather than existing revenues. Companies that secure advanced voice AI capabilities now will dominate the next phase of AI adoption – whether they integrate into their existing offerings or cash-in on selling the tooling back to others.

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Now, we’re examining the critical metrics behind these winners, revealing potential acquisition targets, partnership opportunities, and emerging competitors before they reshape the market.

Below, we analyzed the 100 winners to understand how the cohort stacks up, the markets we’re seeing emerge, top investors in AI, and more.

Learn more about the AI 100 here

Some highlights from our analysis: 

• AI infrastructure shows a maturity gap despite massive funding. Despite the already enormous amount of capital raised in this category, AI infrastructure still has overall low Commercial Maturity Scores and sees a lot of early-stage activity with a specific focus on efficiency. These AI 100 winners are betting on next-generation solutions like specialized AI chips, novel computing architectures with reduced energy consumption and optimized inference, and infrastructure designed for multimodal workloads that current systems can’t efficiently handle. 
• Autonomous vehicles are accelerating beyond the hype cycle. The auto & mobility market ranks third by Mosaic score, with companies gaining significant commercial traction following Waymo‘s recent success in scaling its robotaxi operations. This momentum validates years of R&D investment and suggests we’re entering a new phase of AV deployment. Read more in our recent autonomous vehicle analysis.
• Multimodal AI is driving the biggest breakthroughs. Voice AI platform Cartesia leads the largest year-over-year Mosaic score jump (+321), alongside other companies pushing beyond text-only models toward integrated voice, vision, and reasoning capabilities. This shift represents the next evolution of AI, especially for embodied AI systems like humanoids, moving from single-modality tools toward systems that can understand and generate across multiple forms of media simultaneously. 

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To differentiate themselves, top French firms like Partech are aggressively pursuing deals in high-growth areas like AI and sustainability tech that position them to capture outsized returns. 

Using CB Insights data, we analyzed which investors are building the strongest foundations for portfolio success. Below, see our picks for the top 50 venture investors in France, key takeaways on the list, and a note on methodology.

Venture firms — make sure we’re representing your full portfolio by reaching out to investoroutreach@cbinsights.com to set up a review of CB Insights’ coverage of your investments.

Note: Updated on 6/27/2025 to include IRIS in 22nd position.

CBI customers: Track these investors’ deals in real time

Key takeaways

• Partech tops our ranking, having recorded 28 exits since 2018 and joined 59 startup deals since 2023 (as of 3/31/2025). AI leads with 11 deals (or 19%), followed by sustainability tech with 10 deals (or 17%).
• ISAI and Frst Capital stand out as the only investors to back future unicorns – Liquid AI and poolside, respectively – early. Liquid AI, focused on general-purpose AI, was last valued at $2B in Dec ’24, while Poolside, building AI for software development, hit $3B in Oct ’24.
• Biotech specialist Jeito Capital leads in terms of the quality of its recent investments. Its investments since 2023 have a higher average Mosaic score (730 out of 1,000) than any other investor here. Top performers in its portfolio include NMD Pharma (778) and Augustine Therapeutics (770).

Methodology

We used CB Insights data to review the dealmaking activity of hundreds of France-based investors that fund private-market startups in exchange for equity, and rank them based on the strength and performance of their portfolios.

Our scoring model factors in deal volume between 1/1/2023 and 3/31/2025; unicorns in investors’ portfolios that were backed prior to a $1B valuation; and the share of portfolio companies invested in since 2018 that have gone on to exit. We exclude government vehicles, startup accelerators, incubators. 

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To differentiate themselves, top UK firms like Index Ventures are aggressively pursuing deals in high-growth areas like AI that position them to capture outsized returns. 

Using CB Insights data, we analyzed which investors are building the strongest foundations for portfolio success. Below, see our picks for the top 50 venture investors in the UK, key takeaways on the list, and a note on methodology.

Venture firms — make sure we’re representing your full portfolio by reaching out to investoroutreach@cbinsights.com to set up a review of CB Insights’ coverage of your investments. 

CBI customers: Track these investors’ deals in real time

Key takeaways

• Index Ventures leads our ranking with 118 startup deals since 2023 (as of 4/17/2025). Of those, 52 deals (or 44%) went to AI companies — including Mistral AI, which Index backed 6 months before it became a unicorn.
• Index Ventures and Octopus Ventures show the best exit track records, each backing 25+ startups since 2018 that went on to exit. Their AI focus is clear — at least 14% of exits from each firm are AI/ML companies, including Index-backed Wiz (cloud security; acquired by Google) and Octopus-backed Peak (inventory optimization; acquired by UiPath). 
• Lightrock leads in terms of the quality of its recent investments. Its investments since 2023 have a higher average Mosaic score (687 out of 1,000) than any other investor here. Top performers in its portfolio include Octopus Energy (888) and MediBuddy (808). 

Methodology

We used CB Insights data to review the dealmaking activity of hundreds of UK-based investors that fund private-market startups in exchange for equity, and rank them based on the strength and performance of their portfolios.

Our scoring model factors in deal volume since 2023; unicorns in investors’ portfolios that were backed prior to a $1B valuation; and the share of portfolio companies invested in since 2018 that have gone on to exit. We exclude government vehicles, startup accelerators, incubators. 

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Given this momentum, the ecosystem is larger and more challenging to navigate than ever.

Our annual AI 100 list is designed to cut through this noise and highlight the next wave of AI winners, with a focus on early-stage players that are showing strength in terms of market traction, investor quality, and talent.

Leveraging CB Insights datasets such as deal activity, industry partnerships, team strength, investor strength, patent activity, and our proprietary Mosaic Scores, we selected 100 winners out of a cohort of 17K+ companies. We also analyzed CB Insights’ exclusive interviews with software buyers and dug into Analyst Briefings submitted directly to us by startups.

Below, we map out the winners, categorizing them based on their core offering. Key trends and category definitions follow. Customers can track activity of all of these companies in this watchlist. 

Please click to enlarge. Data as of 4/23/25.

CBI customers: Get data on the winners

Key takeaways on the AI 100

1. AI agents dominate the conversation. These applications, which automate tasks and processes for human users, are the next wave of genAI. Having made their way into virtually every horizontal and enterprise function, AI agents are also coming for infrastructure and verticalized applications. AI agents and supporting infrastructure make up 21% of this year’s companies, and the investors we spoke with consistently cited this space as a priority. 
2. ML security has become table stakes. The need to secure AI applications has grown in lockstep with the proliferation of genAI and agentic AI. 46% of strategy team leaders point to security as the primary barrier to genAI adoption, according to a recent CB Insights survey. Machine learning security companies are hardening AI algorithms and foundational models like LLMs, while also defending against increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks. 
3. AI observability and governance are critical gaps. Widespread use of AI is exposing the technology’s cracks — hallucinations, lack of orchestration, and output inaccuracies. It’s clear that AI ubiquity can’t exist without robust monitoring. Companies are rising to meet this need. Startups in this year’s list cover areas like observability and governance, while a small cohort also monitors AI agents to ensure reliability and compliance.   
4. The future is physical. Looking ahead, AI will evolve beyond software AI agents to a physical state. Advances in disparate areas of AI development — including robotics, multimodal image and voice models, edge computing, synthetic data, and spatial intelligence — provide the scaffolding for physical AI, which pairs AI software with hardware to take action in physical environments. Industrial humanoids represent an early manifestation of this, while future permutations could include fully autonomous defense drones, home companion robots, and more.
5. Vertical applications are exploding. In 2024, the horizontal companies in this AI 100 cohort received more funding than their vertical and infrastructural counterparts — $1.6B compared to $1.2B each for infrastructure and vertical. But in 2025 so far, the funding picture looks very different: Vertical winners lead the way with $1.1B in funding raised.

Category breakdown

AI INFRASTRUCTURE 

On the foundation model front, infrastructure newcomers are rapidly releasing models that rival industry leaders, signaling a maturing market where technical excellence and novel approaches increasingly compete with raw computing power. We identified winners across large language, edge, reasoning, small language, and multimodal models. 

Meanwhile, as AI applications — particularly agents — become more autonomous and widespread, the need for robust monitoring, governance, and cybersecurity solutions has grown in lockstep. 

We’ve heard this in our conversations with AI investors, as well. Mozilla Ventures, a lead investor in Credo AI, views governance as a strategic imperative. Mohamed Nanabhay, Managing Partner, notes: 

 “…We think that the AI governance sector itself will take on a crucial role of creating value for enterprises, allowing companies that leverage governance to deploy AI faster through the reduction of risk with a greater competitive advantage as a result.”

Category definitions:

DATA

• Synthetic data: Artificially generated or altered information that mimics real-world data without privacy concerns. Aaru uses a multi-agent approach to create population simulations for predictive decision-making applications like consumer behavior and electoral modeling.  
• Data preparation & curation: Tools and platforms that clean, transform, label, and organize data to make it suitable for AI training and deployment, encompassing data cleaning and specialized data processing. Unstructured, for instance, helps organizations capture unstructured data from various documents and convert it into AI-friendly formats such as JSON to train LLMs.
• Vector databases: Solutions that provide enterprises with an easy way to store, search, and index unstructured data at a speed, scale, and efficiency that current relational (and non-relational) databases cannot offer. For example, Qdrant provides an open-source vector database that allows developers to build production-ready applications that use nearest neighbor search functionality.

DEVELOPMENT & TRAINING

• Foundation models: Pre-built AI algorithms and architectures that can be deployed, fine-tuned, or integrated into applications, spanning general-purpose foundation models and specialized domain-specific models. This category includes large language, edge, reasoning, small language, and multimodal AI models. For instance, Archetype AI‘s Newton model processes multimodal sensor data and natural language to provide insights and predictions about physical environments.
• Agent building & orchestration: This category covers AI agent development platforms for building, orchestrating, and monitoring agents. Companies like LangChain provide a framework for building context-aware reasoning applications with tools for debugging, testing, and monitoring app performance across the entire application lifecycle.
• Computer vision & spatial intelligence: Technology that enables AI systems to understand, interpret, and interact with physical spaces and 3D environments, including mapping, navigation, and spatial data processing capabilities. Notably, World Labs develops Large World Models (LWMs) that enable AI systems to perceive, generate, and interact with both virtual and real 3D environments using spatial intelligence.

OBSERVABILITY & EVALUATION

• AI observability platforms: These platforms monitor, measure, and assess AI model performance, reliability, and outputs, including tools for testing, benchmarking, and continuous improvement of AI systems. For instance, Arize’s platform allows teams to monitor, diagnose, and improve the performance of AI models and applications in production through tools based on open-source standards that integrate with existing AI infrastructure.
• Governance: Solutions that establish policies, processes, and controls for responsible AI development and deployment, covering risk management, compliance, ethical oversight, and transparency requirements. For example, Credo AI offers a platform that automates AI oversight, risk management, and regulatory compliance while providing AI auditing to ensure system integrity and fairness.
• Machine learning security (MLSec): Technologies that protect AI systems from vulnerabilities, attacks, and data breaches, including techniques for securing model training, inference, and data pipelines. Solutions developed by companies like Zama enable computation on encrypted data, allowing for privacy-preserving machine learning across industries that require data privacy and security.

ACCELERATED COMPUTING & HARDWARE

• Edge: Platforms that provide the infrastructure and models to operate AI on “edge” devices such as tablets, IoT, autonomous vehicles, or smartphones. For example, EdgeRunner AI constructs an ensemble of small, task-specific models that work together to solve complex problems locally on devices, ensuring data privacy and security for heavily regulated industries.
• Photonics: Solutions that use light (photons) instead of electrons for data processing, with the potential to significantly increase computing speeds. Companies in this category provide memory, interconnects, and system architecture. Xscape Photonics develops bandwidth-efficient photonics solutions to support AI/ML infrastructure. 
• Quantum: Companies providing novel techniques like model compression and hardware to support quantum commercialization. Multiverse Computing provides AI model compression technology to enable quantum AI workloads and processing.
• Chips: Traditional chips, in addition to chips to support new AI technologies. Etched develops chips designed specifically for transformer inference, capable of processing extensive data for applications such as real-time voice agents and content generation.

HORIZONTAL AI

This category includes industry-agnostic solutions across visual media, text, code, audio, and interfaces. These function-specific solutions address common business needs regardless of industry, offering specialized intelligence that complements both vertical applications and foundational infrastructure.

AI agents in particular are beginning to upend the way in which enterprises think about software. Decibel Partners, a lead investor in multi-agent platform Dropzone AI, sees a movement toward productizing agents as full systems. Jéssica Leão, a Partner at Decibel, articulates this vision further:

“…We’re going to see the software world change because, again, you’re selling agents almost as if you’re selling back-end software.”

Horizontal AI solutions are increasingly tailored to serve distinct business functions while remaining broadly deployable. Startups in this category are developing sophisticated AI systems that excel in capabilities like content generation, customer support, process automation, and software development — all of which can be applied across industries. 

Category definitions:

• Content generation: AI systems that create text, images, video, and other media forms — spanning automated content production and multimodal generation. For example, Moonvalley’s genAI video model helps filmmakers by enabling prompt adherence, motion generation, and physics simulation using cleaned, fully licensed data.
• Customer service: AI agents that autonomously handle customer service tasks or augment human agents. Sierra‘s platform, for instance, provides intelligent agents for customer support that engage in personalized interactions and integrate with existing call center technologies.
• Cybersecurity: AI-powered solutions that detect, prevent, and respond to digital threats, vulnerabilities, and attacks, covering network security, threat intelligence, and automated incident response. Companies like Binarly use AI to detect and remediate vulnerabilities in firmware and software supply chains.
• General-purpose humanoids: AI systems embedded in robotic bodies that mimic human capabilities, enabling physical interaction through perception and manipulation. For example, Figure develops autonomous humanoid robots that combine human-like dexterity with AI to perform a variety of tasks across industries like manufacturing, logistics, warehousing, and retail.
• Process automation: Intelligent systems that autonomously handle repetitive business workflows, increasing efficiency by eliminating manual tasks. Orby AI offers a platform that observes enterprise processes and generates executable automations — particularly for complex, data-heavy operations in industries like tech and finance. 
• Software development & coding: AI solutions that assist with software development, code generation, debugging, and programming tasks, including automated code completion tools. For instance, Poolside offers foundation models and APIs that can be fine-tuned using a company’s own codebase and documentation to support internal dev teams.
• Video security: Technologies that enable real-time analysis of video feeds, supporting faster detection and response to security threats. Coram AI develops cloud-based security camera systems with features like real-time AI alerts and natural language video search, allowing businesses to monitor properties remotely without extensive hardware replacements.

VERTICAL AI 

Vertical AI is on the rise, with this year’s vertical winners surpassing the other category winners to capture over $1B in combined funding in 2025 YTD. They span 10 industries that represent a convergence of high-value problems, rich data availability, and regulatory momentum.

Some of the VCs we spoke with see specialization as the way of the future. Lila Tretikov, Partner and Head of AI Strategy at New Enterprise Associates (a lead investor for Twelve Labs, World Labs, and Orby AI), told us:

“We believe that there is going to be specialization, even within the model layer. And there’s going to be innovation in this layer, especially as we look at verticalization for specific use cases.”

The most well-represented verticals on this year’s list are healthcare (8 companies) and life sciences (6 companies). The healthcare industry as a whole is seeing breakthrough applications across multiple AI modalities — from agentic AI systems that can augment clinical workflows, to advanced machine vision for medical imaging analysis, to AI-accelerated drug discovery platforms that dramatically reduce R&D timelines.

This year’s cohort also saw significant representation in gaming & virtual assets (5 companies), finance & insurance (4 winners), and aerospace & defense (4 winners). 

Category definitions:

• Aerospace & defense: AI solutions designed for aerospace engineering, aviation operations, military applications, and defense systems, including autonomous navigation and threat detection technologies. For instance, Quantum Systems creates eVTOL unmanned aerial systems that serve critical defense applications, most notably in Ukraine. 
• Auto & mobility: AI applications for autonomous vehicles, transportation optimization, fleet management, and mobility services. Companies like Wayve are developing AI systems that use LLMs to provide real-time natural language explanations of driving decisions, helping improve users’ confidence.
• Energy: Platforms that optimize energy production, distribution, and sustainability, including battery intelligence and AI assistance for electric grids. For example, Liminal leverages ultrasound and machine learning inspection solutions to improve battery cell quality, cost-effectiveness, and safety while enabling confident scaling of production. 
• Finance & insurance: AI solutions for financial services, banking, investment, and insurance sectors, covering payments, risk assessment, and portfolio monitoring. Skyfire’s financial stack enables AI agents to perform transactions without credit cards or bank accounts, allowing businesses to monetize their products, services, and data through AI agents.
• Gaming & virtual assets: AI technologies that enhance gaming experiences, virtual environments, digital asset management, and immersive entertainment, including content generation and NPC (non-player character) intelligence. Altera‘s platform creates digital human beings that can interact with users and perform tasks autonomously, bringing empathy and human-like traits to digital interactions.
• Healthcare: AI applications focused on clinical care delivery, medical operations, and patient management, including tools for clinical documentation automation, medical imaging analysis, decision support systems, remote patient monitoring, and healthcare supply chain optimization. In the dental field, Overjet provides an AI platform that enhances clinical care through radiographic analysis and optimizes claims processing for providers and payers.
• Life sciences: AI solutions for pharmaceutical research, drug discovery, protein engineering, biological data analysis, and therapeutic development, including platforms for multiomics analysis, antibody design, foundation models for biology, and scientific experiment automation. Lila Sciences has developed a platform that integrates AI with autonomous laboratories to design, conduct, observe, and redesign experiments for scientific discovery.
• Legal: AI tools for legal research, document analysis, contract management, compliance, and legal workflow automation, including case management, due diligence, and contract review. AI-powered tools like Eve help law firms streamline the full case lifecycle from intake to litigation by automating case intake, drafting legal documents, and managing discovery processes.
• Manufacturing: Technology that optimizes industrial processes like factory automation, using virtual development and simulation. PhysicsX applies machine learning to physics simulations that optimize design and engineering processes across industries including aerospace, medical devices, and electric vehicles.
• Supply chain: AI solutions that enhance logistics and supply chain operations, including warehouse management and route optimization & visibility. Dexory combines stock-scanning robots with a digital twin platform to provide real-time inventory and warehouse analytics for logistics and supply chain operations.

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

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For health system CIOs, digital health investors, and life sciences executives, this list spotlights companies to explore for technology adoption, investment opportunities, and strategic partnerships as healthcare shifts toward AI-driven infrastructure, advanced diagnostics, and specialized care platforms.

Four key themes emerged from this year’s cohort:

• • AI will become foundational to infrastructure across healthcare, as evidenced by 36 of the 50 companies building AI products, from insurance claim copilots (Alaffia Health) to specialized healthcare LLMs (Hippocratic AI). These startups reflect the start of a broader shift for AI from powering point solutions to becoming an essential part of healthcare delivery for patients.
  • Diagnostic innovations continue to dominate, representing the most crowded category on last year’s list and tying for the largest category this year, with 11 companies developing tools across imaging (Airs Medical), pathology (Proscia), and non-invasive diagnostics (Alimetry). These next-generation diagnostics look to make testing more accessible and non-invasive while prioritizing early detection.
  • Virtual and hybrid care companies more than doubled in this year’s cohort, with 11 companies in this category, up from 5 last year. The increase reflects the growing number of specialized platforms in areas including mental health (Talkiatry) and cancer care (Resilience), signaling the shift from general telemedicine toward condition-specific virtual care models.
  • Workflow efficiency emerges as a key priority heading into 2025, with 19 companies streamlining administrative and clinical tasks, from medical document processing (Tennr) to ambient documentation (Abridge). The surge of automation solutions here signals that healthcare organizations will prioritize efficiency amid staffing shortages to help shift provider time from paperwork to patient care. 

Discover all 50 winners in the Expert Collection

Our selection of winning companies followed a rigorous three-step process.

From a pool of 10,000+ digital health startups, we analyzed companies using CB Insights’ proprietary metrics — Commercial Maturity and Mosaic scores — along with additional data on partnerships, funding, patents, leadership, and headcount.

Companies with high Mosaic scores (> 500) and recent market activity advanced to our shortlist of 1,500 candidates. We supplemented this analysis with direct company submissions via Analyst Briefings.

Our analysts then evaluated strategic partnerships, market adoption, and growth metrics to identify the 50 most promising digital health companies.

2024 DIGITAL HEALTH 50 COHORT HIGHLIGHTS 

Funding and deals

The 2024 Digital Health 50 companies have raised $3.5B across 171 disclosed equity deals (as of 11/14/2024). Monogram Health and Abridge lead the cohort in disclosed equity funding, with $555M and $208M, respectively.

In 2024 so far, the cohort has raised $1.6B across 47 disclosed equity deals. The largest deals include:

• Abridge — $150M Series C
• Superluminal Medicines — $120M Series A
• Grow Therapy — $88M Series C
• CytoReason — $80M Series A
• Ambience — $70M Series B

The recipients of these top deals are largely focused on 2 AI applications: streamlining clinical documentation (Abridge and Ambience) and accelerating drug discovery (Superluminal Medicines and CytoReason).

See all equity deals raised by the 2024 DH 50

Stage breakdown

Fifty-six percent of the 2024 Digital Health 50 companies are early-stage (seed or Series A). In comparison, 44% of winners are mid-stage (primarily Series B or C) companies.

Top investors

Andreessen Horowitz leads VC investors (including CVCs) in the number of 2024 Digital Health 50 winners backed (8). Its investments span various areas within digital health, including:

• D2C health testing — Function Health
• Clinical intelligence — Ambience, Hippocratic AI, Scribenote
• Virtual & hybrid care — Talkiatry, Pomelo Care
• Price transparency — Turquoise Health
• Administrative workflow optimization — Tennr

Andreessen Horowitz is followed by BoxGroup, General Catalyst, and NVentures (Nvidia’s venture arm), each with 5 winners backed. 

All 5 of NVentures’ portfolio companies are building AI products. They are split between clinical intelligence (Hippocratic AI, Abridge, Artisight) and drug discovery (Iambic Therapeutics, Superluminal Medicines).

Healthcare systems and other big tech players are also active investors in the 2024 Digital Health 50. Mayo Clinic, Memorial Hermann, and Google Ventures have each invested in 3 companies on this year’s list.

Geographic distribution

This year’s Digital Health 50 companies are headquartered across 9 countries. Most companies (36) are based in the United States.

Germany has the largest representation outside of the US — 3 companies are headquartered in the country. It is followed by Canada, Israel, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, each with 2 companies. 

Additional countries represented include New Zealand, Belgium, and France, each with 1 company.

Headcount growth

The 2024 Digital Health 50 companies collectively employ more than 7,500 people, with 4 companies employing about 40% of the cohort’s workers: Grow Therapy, Nourish, Monogram Health, and Octave. 

Three companies — Tennr, Nourish, and Pomelo Care — have demonstrated the strongest headcount growth over the past year, with 12-month (September 2023–2024) headcount increases of 320%, 250%, and 244%, respectively. 

This year’s winners collectively created more than 2,900 jobs over the period, with Grow Therapy creating the most jobs (800).

The median 2024 Digital Health 50 winner has raised $487K in equity funding per employee. Superluminal Medicines leads the pack, raising $8.1M per employee, followed by Chai Discovery ($4.3M) and Iambic Therapeutics ($2.6M).

Company health

The average Mosaic score — a proprietary measure of private company health and growth potential — for the 2024 Digital Health 50 is 771 out of 1,000 (as of 11/14/2024). 

Forty companies in this year’s cohort have a Mosaic score of 700 or higher, placing them among the top 4% of private companies tracked by CB Insights. 

Midi and Nourish lead the cohort with the highest scores — 932 and 887, respectively.

The post Digital Health 50: The most promising digital health startups of 2024 appeared first on CB Insights Research.

For companies interested in the future of fintech, these startups — working on everything from deploying novel AI solutions across the landscape to expanding access to financial services — should be on your radar for partnership and investment opportunities.

The list primarily includes early- and mid-stage startups driving innovation across fintech. Our research team picked winning companies based on CB Insights datasets, including deal activity, industry partnerships, team strength, investor strength, employee headcount, and proprietary Commercial Maturity and Mosaic scores. We also dug into Analyst Briefings submitted directly to us by startups.

Please click to enlarge.

Here is a summary of the 2024 Fintech 100 cohort highlights:

• The 100 winners include 13 wealth management companies, 11 in embedded finance, and 10 in insurance.
• $7.2B in equity funding raised over time, including more than $2B in 2024 so far (as of 10/23/2024).
• Nearly 50% are early-stage companies (primarily seed/angel or Series A).
• 52 companies from outside the United States, across 23 countries on 6 continents. This includes 17 companies from 11 emerging and developing economies.
• 850+ business relationships since 2022, including with industry leaders like Mastercard, State Street, and Flipkart.

Companies are categorized by their primary focus area and client base. Categories in the market map are not mutually exclusive.

CB Insights customers can interact with the entire Fintech 100 list here and view a detailed category breakdown using the Expert Collection.

2024 FINTECH 100 COHORT HIGHLIGHTS

Funding and valuations

The 2024 Fintech 100 winners have raised $7.2B across 370+ disclosed equity deals to date (as of 10/23/2024).

Gaming payments company Coda Payments and rent rewards company Bilt Rewards lead all winners in disclosed equity funding (with $715M and $560M in funding, respectively). 

In 2024 so far, this year’s winners have raised just over $2B across 72 disclosed equity deals.

Three winners have raised mega-rounds ($100M+ deals) in 2024 so far: 

• Bilt Rewards — $200M Series C, $150M Series C – II
• Akur8 — $120M Series C
• FundGuard — $100M Series C

Just 5 companies on this year’s list have reached unicorn status (a $1B+ valuation). Amid the broader venture slowdown, just one winner has hit unicorn status in 2024 so far: Pennylane, a France-based financial management and accounting platform for businesses.

Customers: explore all Fintech 100 deals

Stage breakdown and commercial maturity

Nearly half — 48 — of this year’s Fintech 100 winners are early-stage companies (primarily seed/angel or Series A).

More than 60% of the companies on the list (62) have a CB Insights Commercial Maturity score — which measures a private company’s current ability to compete for customers or serve as a partner — of 4, or Scaling. This indicates they are gaining market traction and growing clients, partners, headcount, and revenue. 

Twenty-six winners have a score of 3, or Deploying, which means they have validated ideas and are beginning commercial distribution.

Top investors

Plug and Play Ventures leads all venture capital (VC) firms, including CVC firms, in the number of winners backed. The 2024 Fintech 100 companies in its portfolio operate across financial management and accounting (Finally), capital markets (FundGuard), payment acceptance (AiFi, Fintoc), banking (Tuum), wealth management (Boldin), and payroll (WorkPay). 

Meanwhile, General Catalyst leads in the total number of investments in the 2024 Fintech 100, as it has invested 13 times across 6 companies. It has invested in Bilt Rewards, financial management & accounting firm Collective, alternative credit scoring company Nova Credit, cross-border payments platform Finom, student loan management platform Summer, and AI agent Powder.

Geographic distribution

Just over half (52) of this year’s Fintech 100 winners are based outside of the United States. The United Kingdom leads all non-US countries with 12 winners, and Canada and Singapore are tied for second with 6 companies each. 

Seventeen companies on this year’s list come from 11 emerging and developing economies (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kenya, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Thailand, and Uruguay). Many of these winners are focused on solutions driving financial inclusion and accessibility for groups like small businesses and consumers building their credit.

Headcount growth

This year’s Fintech 100 winners collectively employ more than 18,000 people. Median year-over-year headcount growth is more than 30%.

Bilt leads all winners with $3.1M in equity funding per employee. Embedded finance company Brim Financial, blockchain company Fnality, and Coda Payments are tied for second with $1.6M per employee.

Company health

Eighty-three of this year’s winning companies have a CB Insights Mosaic score — a proprietary measure of private company health and growth potential — of at least 700 out of 1,000 (as of 10/23/24). Compared to all private companies — fintechs or otherwise — with Mosaic scores, these 83 winners rank in the top 4% by Mosaic score. 

Bilt Rewards leads the cohort with a score of 952. Nova Credit and Arta are tied for second with 883.

Winners deploy AI across a variety of use cases

AI’s dominance in the venture market and broader tech conversations is reflected in this year’s Fintech 100 cohort. 

Several winners have developed AI solutions to automate financial services operations. For example, Alkymi and Saphyre are among the handful of companies using AI to analyze and extract data from financial documents.

But winners are also deploying AI within specific financial services sectors, including embedded finance, compliance, and insurance.

For instance, Gynger uses AI and data analytics to quickly approve and underwrite financing. The company is backed by PayPal Ventures and Google’s AI-focused venture arm Gradient Ventures. 

Meanwhile, Norm Ai offers AI agents for compliance teams, enabling them to assess content or actions against regulatory requirements. The company raised a $27M Series A round in June 2024 from investors including Bain Capital Ventures and Citi Ventures.

Delos Insurance Solutions, on the other hand, issues property insurance and analyzes satellite data using AI to identify areas with greater wildfire risk. Its founders’ backgrounds in the space industry inform their approach to data gathering via satellite.

Fintechs gear solutions toward financial inclusion and accessibility

Many of this year’s winners are focused on making financial services and technology more accessible to growing customer segments. 

Small businesses are a focus worldwide. This year’s list includes solutions like Sequoia Capital– and Founders Fund-backed Found, which offers banking for self-employed people and small business owners. Meanwhile, Pakistan-based NayaPay offers financial management for consumers as well as small businesses. Singapore-based YouTrip also has both B2C and B2B platforms for cross-border payments, focusing its B2B services on small businesses in southeast Asia. 

Companies in this year’s cohort are also targeting consumers building their financial profiles and wealth. US-based MAJORITY allows individuals to get banked in the US without social security numbers. OTO, meanwhile, offers loans for electric bike and scooter purchases in India. Banks are hesitant to finance the purchases despite strong government support for the vehicles, so the massive consumer market is turning to fintechs.

Meanwhile, companies like Bilt Rewards and CheQ are helping consumers manage their credit and build toward major purchases in different ways. Bilt converts rent payments into points that can be redeemed toward a down payment on a home, and it can also send renters’ on-time payment reports to credit bureaus. 

In India, where credit cards have lower penetration but are growing quickly, CheQ helps consumers pay off all of their credit cards and earn rewards on one digital platform. It aims to support users who are new to the credit system and offers free credit reports and tips on managing credit. The company recently announced a partnership with India’s e-commerce giant Flipkart to enable consumers to earn extra points on purchases during Flipkart’s sale event.

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The question is certainly top of mind for corporations getting to grips with emerging technology like generative AI — the answer could help identify future competitors, partners, new markets, or acquisition targets.  

Using CB Insights’ proprietary data and metrics — including Exit Probability, Commercial Maturity, Mosaic, headcount, patents, and funding — we identified the 52 emerging players our data says are most likely to have an outsized influence in the next 5–10 years and have a strong exit. 

Download the report to see:

• The full list of Future Tech Hotshots
• Key themes and industry analysis
• Methodology

MORE TOP COMPANY LISTS FROM CB INSIGHTS:

• Insurtech 50: The most promising insurtech startups of 2024
• AI 100: The most promising artificial intelligence startups of 2024
• The Digital Health 50: The most promising digital health companies of 2023
• Fintech 100: The most promising fintech startups of 2023

The post Future Tech Hotshots: 52 emerging tech startups that will have big, successful exits appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Highlights from the 2024 cohort include:

• The 50 winners include 23 tech vendors and 27 insurers and intermediaries.
• $5.6B in equity funding raised over time, including $1B in 2024 so far (as of 8/19/24).
• Forty percent of winners are early-stage insurtechs addressing everything from wildfire risk to genAI-powered workflow automation.
• More than a dozen countries represented, spanning Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America.
• 500+ business relationships since 2020, including with industry leaders like Swiss Re and Tokio Marine.

Our research team picked winning companies based on CB Insights datasets, including deal activity, industry partnerships, team strength, investor strength, patent activity, employee headcount, and proprietary Commercial Maturity and Mosaic scores. We also dug into Analyst Briefings submitted directly to us by startups.

Please click to enlarge.

CB Insights customers can interact with the entire Insurtech 50 list here and view a detailed category breakdown using the Expert Collection.

2024 INSURTECH 50 COHORT HIGHLIGHTS

Funding and valuations

The cohort has raised $5.6B across 210+ disclosed equity deals to date (as of 8/19/24). Next Insurance and Coalition lead in disclosed equity funding among the cohort ($1.1B and $770M, respectively).

In 2024 so far, this year’s winners have raised $1B across 38 disclosed equity deals. Just 5 deals account for more than half of this funding total:

• Altana AI — $200M Series C
• ICEYE — $93M Series D
• Vitesse — $93M Series C
• Cover Genius — $80M Series E
• Hyperexponential — $73M Series B

Altana AI reached a $1B valuation following its Series C round in July 2024. This earned it a spot in the unicorn club alongside the other unicorns in this year’s Insurtech 50 cohort: Accelerant, Coalition, and Next Insurance.

Stage breakdown

Forty percent of this year’s Insurtech 50 winners are early-stage companies (i.e., primarily seed or Series A). These companies are the fastest-growing among those analyzed, with a median 12-month headcount growth rate of 45% — 23 points higher than the median for the rest of the cohort.

Comparatively, 46% of winners are mid-stage (i.e., Series B or C), and 14% are late-stage (i.e., primarily Series D+).

Top investors

MS&AD Ventures has invested in 5 of this year’s winners, leading among venture capital (VC) firms, including corporate venture capital firms. The investor has backed 4 insurance providers — Accelerant, Anzen, Next Insurance, and Wagmo — and 1 tech vendor, Artificial Labs. 

Following MS&AD Ventures are Felicis, General Catalyst, Nationwide Ventures, and Portage — each of these investors has backed 4 winners.

When it comes to investment activity in 2024, Portage leads in the number of winners backed. So far this year, it has backed 3 insurance providers: CoverTree, Faye, and Hellas Direct.

Geographic distribution

This year’s Insurtech 50 winners are collectively headquartered across more than a dozen different countries. 

The majority of these companies (30) are based in the United States. Among US metro areas, New York and Silicon Valley lead the pack, as they are both home to 10 of the winners. These metro areas are followed by Boston (4 winners) and Atlanta (2 winners).

The UK follows the US with 8 winners — 6 based in London and 2 near Birmingham.

Headcount growth

Over 7,700 people are employed by the 2024 Insurtech 50 winners, with 4 companies employing about a third of the cohort’s workers: Next Insurance, Coalition, ICEYE, and Cover Genius.

From July 2023 to July 2024, this year’s winners created more than 1,400 jobs. One winner more than tripled its headcount over the period: Sixfold (+267% YoY).

The median 2024 Insurtech 50 winner has raised $0.6M in equity funding per employee. Altana AI and Next Insurance lead among the winners, each having raised $1.6M in equity funding per employee.

Company health

Forty-one of the 50 winners have a CB Insights Mosaic score — a proprietary measure of private company health and growth potential — of at least 700 out of 1,000 (as of 8/26/24). Compared to all private companies — insurtechs or otherwise — with Mosaic scores, these 41 winners rank in the top 3% by Mosaic score.

Next Insurance and Coalition — with Mosaic scores of 898 and 881, respectively — hold the highest scores among this year’s winners.

AI threads the tech vendor landscape

Most of the winning tech vendors offer AI products, which aligns with the broader momentum toward AI (and generative AI) adoption across the insurance industry. Applications often center on prioritization use cases, like risk ranking for underwriters and claims triage for adjusters.

The winners’ business relationships often incorporate the use of AI. Recent examples with industry figures include:

• Reask and AXA Climate — March 2024
• Akur8 and Tokio Marine HCC — April 2024
• Indico Data and Convex — June 2024

Insurtech managing general agents (MGAs) gain ground

MGAs — intermediaries with delegated underwriting authority from one or more insurance carriers as well as related entities like managing general underwriters — represent a sizable portion of the 2024 Insurtech 50 list. Their presence reflects broader industry momentum toward the business model.

Notably, most insurtechs within the commercial category are MGAs that offer property & casualty insurance to businesses. Established insurers have made strategic investments in several of these companies, including:

• American Family Insurance, which led Ledgebrook’s $24M Series A round in April 2024 via its CVC (American Family Ventures)
• Arch Capital Group, which participated in Rainbow’s $12M seed round in January 2024
• Hiscox, which led Coterie Insurance’s Series B round in March 2024

The post Insurtech 50: The most promising insurtech startups of 2024 appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Highlights from the 2024 cohort include:

• 16 countries represented, from the US to France to South Africa
• 30+ categories of solutions, from foundation models to humanoids
• 68% early-stage startups building virtual worlds, autonomous factories, language models for under-represented languages, and more
• 600+ business relationships since 2016 with industry leaders like Toyota, Netflix, and the World Bank

Our research team picked winning companies based on CB Insights datasets including deal activity, industry partnerships, team strength, investor strength, patent activity, and proprietary Mosaic Scores. We also analyzed CB Insights’ exclusive interviews with software buyers and dug into Analyst Briefings submitted directly to us by startups.

Please click to enlarge.

CB Insights customers can interact with the entire AI 100 list here and view a detailed category breakdown using the Expert Collection.

2024 AI 100 COHORT HIGHLIGHTS

Funding distribution

The cohort has raised over $28B across 240+ equity deals since 2020 (as of 3/22/24). OpenAI has raised over 40% of that total, with $12B. Meanwhile, 25% of the winning companies have raised less than $10M, with some not having raised any venture funding.   

Just over two-thirds (68%) of winning companies are in the early stages of fundraising (seed/angel and Series A) or have yet to raise outside equity.

Valuation trends

This year’s list includes 19 unicorns with a $1B+ valuation.

Meanwhile, Sakana AI — founded by one of the authors of the seminal Google research paper on Transformers — has the highest valuation per employee, at $67M. (It had just 3 employees when it earned its $200M valuation in early 2024.) Sakana is working on new “nature-inspired” AI architectures and recently released 3 Japanese-language models.

Revenue generation

The AI 100 includes a mix of companies at different stages of maturity, product development, and revenue. 

Hugging Face, an AI infrastructure platform focused on open-source development, has one of the highest revenue multiples at 150x ($30M in 2023 revenue at a $4.5B valuation). It’s followed by Perplexity, which is developing an alternative to traditional search engines, at 65x (based on a 2023 valuation of $520M and $8M in 2024 ARR).

Midjourney, an image generation platform that has not raised any outside equity, is one of the leading AI 100 winners by revenue with $200M in ARR.

Global reach 

A total of 31 winning companies in this year’s cohort are headquartered outside the United States, across 15 other countries. This includes South Africa-based Lelapa AI — which is developing language processing tools for sub-Saharan African languages like Afrikaans, isiZulu, and Sesotho — and Canada-based Ideogram, which is tackling the problem of generating images with legible text. 

Europe-based startups account for 19% of the list, including companies headquartered in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

Categories & applications 

Over one-third of this year’s winners are focused on building core AI infrastructure, from foundation models to AI chips to AI development platforms. 

A total of 30 vendors are focused on horizontal (i.e., cross-industry) solutions like coding automation, creator tools, and search, while 34 companies are specializing in verticals like gaming, healthcare, education, and manufacturing.

A handful of winners are building niche applications where the use of AI is not yet commonplace. These include:

• Atomic Industries, which is developing AI for tool and die making in manufacturing and is backed by the venture arms of Porsche, Yamaha, and Toyota
• Rosebud AI, a text-to-game generation startup backed by OpenAI co-founders Ilya Sutskever and Andrej Karpathy, as well as Khosla Ventures
• Flawless AI, a startup developing lip-synced video dubbing for the film industry

CB Insights customers can get real-time updates on the AI 100 winners using this home feed.

The post AI 100: The most promising artificial intelligence startups of 2024 appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Companies on this list are building tools for clinicians, healthcare organizations, payers, and life sciences companies. Some are building the next generation of drug discovery platforms or re-envisioning how clinical trials are prepared, run, and accessed. Others are focused on tools for transforming surgery and helping patients prepare for procedures. Many are developing new ways to analyze data from monitoring devices or imaging, using AI to make quicker diagnoses and to help clinicians determine the right treatment for each patient.

The 50 winners were selected from a pool of over 10K companies, including applicants and nominees. They were chosen based on several factors, including CB Insights datasets — covering R&D activity, Mosaic scores, business relationships, software buyer transcripts, investor profiles, news sentiment analysis, competitive landscape, and team strength — along with criteria such as tech novelty, market potential, and impact on the industry.

CB Insights customers can access the entire Digital Health 50 list and interactive Expert Collection here. 

If you are not already a CB Insights customer, sign up for a free trial to analyze each winner’s funding and valuation history, headcount growth, key competitors, and more.

Want to be considered for future rankings? Fill out this initial application form (it’ll take no more than a few minutes). If selected, you’ll be asked to complete our Analyst Briefing Survey so that our analysts can better understand your products, customers, and market traction.

TOP DIGITAL HEALTH COMPANIES 2023: DIGITAL HEALTH 50 HIGHLIGHTS

Overall funding & valuation trends: The Digital Health 50 contains a mix of early- and mid-stage private companies, at different levels of product development and maturity.

Overall, the cohort has raised $3.2B+ in equity funding across 145 deals since 2018 (as of 11/27/23). In 2023 so far, these companies have secured 41 equity deals that collectively amount to nearly $1.5B. This year’s list includes 1 tech unicorn (a private company with a $1B+ valuation).

Early-stage innovation: Thirty-one winners (62%) are in the early fundraising stages (seed/angel or Series A). 

While many of our winners from previous years focus on providing care directly to patients, a growing number of early-stage innovators — companies like Atropos Health, Rad AI, and HealthSnap — are producing tools to assist clinicians and healthcare organizations, giving them access to cutting-edge technology like generative AI.

Most represented categories: Among the categories highlighted on the map, diagnosis & imaging holds the largest share of this year’s winning cohort (18%). The 9 companies in this category are focused on the early detection and diagnosis of serious diseases and conditions, potentially enabling quicker interventions and better patient outcomes. 

Companies like Harbinger Health and BillionToOne are creating new ways to detect disease through liquid biopsies and other noninvasive testing methods. Others — including Idoven and RapidAI — leverage AI and advanced analytics to improve the accuracy and diagnostic potential of existing imaging and monitoring tools.

Diagnosis & imaging isn’t the only digital health category being transformed by AI — this year’s winning cohort contains 33 companies with AI-augmented solutions. 

Global reach: This year’s winners represent 8 countries across the globe. Twenty-two percent are headquartered outside the US, including 3 from the United Kingdom, 2 from Israel, and 2 from Spain. Other countries represented include South Korea, Belgium, France, and Brazil.

THE DIGITAL HEALTH 150 CLASS OF 2022: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

The Digital Health 150 2022 cohort has posted several accomplishments in 2023 so far (as of 11/27/23), including:

• One new unicorn with a $1B+ valuation.
• $500M+ in new equity funding across 38 deals.
• 2 exits: Hospital IQ was acquired by 2021 DH 150 winner LeanTaaS, and Nuvo Group has announced plans to go public via SPAC.

The post The Digital Health 50: The most promising digital health companies of 2023 appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Using CB Insights data, we picked these 300+ private startups from a pool of over 1M companies in our database across:

• Fintech
• Artificial intelligence
• Generative AI
• Insurtech
• Retail tech

Download the data file to get the details on each company. They’re early stage to late stage and from around the world.

If you are not already a CB Insights client, sign up for a free trial to analyze each winner’s customer relationships, read buyer impressions of their product, see their headcount growth, and more.

Our analysts will also be unveiling the most promising digital health startups on December 5. Register for the live briefing here.

The post The 345 most promising startups in the world appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Three-quarters of this year’s winners are B2B fintechs, including business spend management platforms, cross-border and real-time payment providers, and core banking and infrastructure platforms.

Additionally, 24 companies in this year’s cohort are B2C, including challenger banks, mobile wallets, and retail investing platforms. 

Using the CB Insights platform, our research team picked these 100 private market companies from a pool of over 19K companies, including applicants and nominees. They were chosen based on CB Insights datasets — including equity funding, investor profiles, business relationships, R&D activity, news sentiment analysis, competitive landscape, proprietary Mosaic scores, and Yardstiq transcripts — and criteria such as tech novelty and market potential. The research team also reviewed thousands of Analyst Briefings submitted by applicants.

CB Insights clients can access the entire Fintech 100 list and interactive Expert Collection here.

If you are not already a CB Insights client, sign up for a free trial to analyze each winner’s funding and valuation history, headcount growth, key competitors, and more.

Want to be considered for future rankings? Fill out this initial application form (it’ll take no more than a few minutes). If selected, you’ll be asked to complete our Analyst Briefing Survey so that our analysts can better understand your products, customers, and market traction.

Companies are categorized by their primary focus area and client base. Categories in the market map are not mutually exclusive.

Please click to enlarge.

TOP FINTECH COMPANIES 2023: FINTECH 100 COHORT HIGHLIGHTS

Overall funding and valuation trends: The Fintech 100 includes a mix of companies at different stages of maturity, product development, and funding. The cohort has raised nearly $22B in equity funding across 381 deals since 2019 (as of 9/22/23). This year’s list includes 31 unicorns (private companies with a $1B+ valuation).

Early-stage innovation: Twenty companies in this year’s winning cohort are in early fundraising stages (seed/angel or Series A). Solutions from early innovators are being developed across categories, including B2B BNPL (Mondu and Two), account-to-account (A2A) payments (Banked and kevin.), and mobile wallets and remittances (DANA and LemFi).

Most represented categories: The cohort is broken down into 20 categories. “Spend management” and “insurance” are tied for the largest portion of this year’s winners (9 companies each).

The spend management category is led by later-stage market leaders Brex and Ramp, which both launched generative AI product features this year. The category also includes two new winners in non-US markets: Singapore-based Aspire and Mexico-based Clara.

Insurance is one of the biggest categories for the second straight year. Eight out of the 9 insurtechs are B2B, including two insurance distribution platforms: repeat winner bolttech and new winner Cover Genius. 

Global reach: This year’s winners represent 24 different countries across the globe. Forty-three percent of the selected companies are headquartered in the US — down from 53% last year. The UK comes in second with 12 winners, followed by Singapore with 7.

Additionally, some emerging markets stand out with multiple winners this year. For example, India has 3 winners, while Indonesia and Egypt each have 2.

Novel applications: Two of this year’s winners are developing large language models purpose-built for financial services: conversational AI provider and returning winner Kasisto and financial document processing platform Cognaize.

Two winners in the wealth and asset management category, AlphaSense and SESAMm, have integrated generative AI into their market intelligence platforms for document summarization and extraction. 

Finally, within core banking and infrastructure, embedded finance platforms — like repeat winner Unit and an early-stage new winner Synctera — are growing quickly in the United States.

THE FINTECH 250 CLASS OF 2022: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

The Fintech 250 2022 cohort has posted some notable accomplishments since October 4, 2022. Collectively, this cohort has seen:

• $10B in equity funding across 64 deals — including Stripe’s $6.5B round in March 2023.
• 14 mega-rounds (deals worth $100M+).
• 2 acquisitions: Uplift was acquired by another Fintech 250 winner, Upgrade, for $100M, and PolicyGenius was acquired by Zinnia.
• 4 new entrants to the unicorn club: eToro, Kin, Liquidity, and Quantexa all hit $1B+ valuations for the first time.

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Among this year’s winning cohort, 16 winners are focused on industry-specific genAI use cases, such as character animation in media & entertainment or drug discovery in healthcare. A total of 20 vendors are working on cross-industry solutions, like AI assistants & human-machine interfaces (HMIs) as well as code generation tools. The other 14 companies in the GenAI 50 cohort are developing tools like vector database tech and foundation models to support AI development.

Our research team picked these 50 private market vendors using CB Insights datasets — including R&D activity, proprietary Mosaic scores, business relationships, Yardstiq transcripts, investor profiles, news sentiment analysis, competitive landscape, and team strength — and criteria such as tech novelty and market potential. The research team also reviewed Analyst Briefings submitted by applicants.

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Among this year’s winners, some are developing new AI tools and infrastructure for insurers to digitize and improve back-office efforts, while others are competing with legacy insurers by building tech-first insurance platforms. A number of winners are digitally linking various stakeholders in the insurance industry, such as by opening new distribution channels or enabling more efficient risk transfer exchanges.

The CB Insights research team picked these 50 vendors from a pool of over 2K companies, including applicants and nominees. They were chosen based on CB Insights datasets — including R&D activity, Mosaic scores, business relationships, Yardstiq transcripts, investor profiles, news sentiment analysis, competitive landscape, and team strength — and criteria such as tech novelty and market potential.

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Around one-third of this year’s winners are focused on AI applications across specific industries — such as visual dubbing for the media & entertainment sector or textile recycling for fashion & retail. A total of 40 vendors are focused on cross-industry solutions, like AI assistants & human-machine interfaces (HMIs), digital twins, climate tech, and smell tech.

Additionally, 27 companies in this cohort are developing tools like vector database tech and synthetic datasets to support AI development.

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