How to become a unicorn in 2025: Artificial intelligence runs the show
Why are AI startups becoming unicorns?
Every startup dreams of becoming a unicorn. In the past, achieving this status required a keen market sense, visionary thinking, and a great deal of luck. Today, it is much simpler — you just need to choose the AI sector.
How the term "unicorn" appeared
In the startup world, the term "unicorn" refers to a private company valued at more than $1 billion. Venture investor Aileen Lee first introduced this figurative term in 2013. In her article for TechCrunch, she used this word to describe rare and successful companies, emphasizing their exclusivity — at that time, such examples were few and far between. Since then, the word has become firmly embedded in business vocabulary and symbolizes the dream of many startups and investors.
Nowadays, unicorns are no longer as rare as they were 10 years ago, but they still belong to an exclusive club. According to various analytical agencies, there are now around 1,700 unicorns worldwide, and this number continues to grow thanks to the active development of technology markets and venture funding.
There are quite a few unicorns in the cryptocurrency industry. Companies like Ripple, Blockchain.com, OpenSea, Ledger, and Chainalysis surpassed the $1 billion mark long ago. Even more crypto startups are approaching this milestone. One of the latest is Pump.fun, which is expected to become a unicorn in the coming weeks.
Currently, the most successful unicorns in the world are ByteDance (the creator of TikTok) and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. These companies have maintained their leadership for several years now.
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Unicorns in 2025
This year has been no exception, with six new unicorns officially emerging just in January. These companies operate in various fields: Kikoff (personal finance management platform), Netradyne (computer vision and AI driving technologies), Hippocratic AI (AI models for healthcare), Truveta (genetic research), Mercor (recruiting), and Loft Orbital (satellite technologies).
By summer, their number had multiplied, and there are now over 40 new unicorns. Let’s take a look at the most successful of them — those valued at over $2 billion.
Top Unicorns in 2025. Source: PitchBook
As we can see, the largest unicorn of 2025 is a Chinese company developing flash memory chips. Yangtze Memory is valued at more than $22 billion, allowing the startup to pull far ahead of competitors. The company achieved unicorn status in April after raising $222 million from Quanhong Investment.
In second place is the American startup Abridge, with a valuation of $2.8 billion. This project focuses on using AI in healthcare. The neural network helps document conversations between doctors and patients.
Rounding out the top three is the AI startup Peregrine, which develops a real-time data analytics platform for government and commercial organizations. Its solutions help integrate disparate data sources to support decision-making in public safety, healthcare, and emergency management.
Overall, many of the leaders are AI-driven projects: Synthesia (AI-powered video generation), AnySphere (AI programming assistants), and The Bot Company (AI agents). But why are AI-related projects in particular attracting so much investor attention?
The secret to the success of AI unicorns
AI startups have been achieving unicorn status en masse over the past two years, thanks to a combination of technological progress and an investment boom. The surge of interest in generative AI following the release of ChatGPT created a new market with enormous demand from both users and businesses. Companies and investors view AI as a universal tool capable of transforming almost any industry — from healthcare to finance and education. Venture funds are ready to pour millions into projects that promise to automate processes, boost efficiency, and lower costs through intelligent algorithms.
In addition, AI startups today can demonstrate rapid growth in user base and revenue, which is critical for achieving high valuations. The flexibility of AI technologies enables the creation of new business models and products with high scalability potential. As a result, investors are eager to drive such projects to billion-dollar valuations even at early stages.
According to PitchBook, over 60% of new unicorns in 2025 are AI-related — and this share continues to grow. In the coming years, artificial intelligence is likely to remain the primary source of new unicorns in the tech market.
