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TechCrunch’s February 20, 2025 list names 60 U.S. startups it says became unicorns in 2024, grouped by month and accompanied by reported valuations. A unicorn is a privately held startup valued at $1 billion or more. These figures are historical private-market estimates tied to financing events—not current market prices—and TechCrunch’s count should be read as its own compilation, not an independently reconciled total.
How to read the list
TechCrunch says it used Crunchbase, CB Insights and PitchBook to identify newly minted unicorns, but does not provide a reproducible inclusion rule or a source citation for every company. The entries below preserve the month headings, descriptions and figures in its article; they are not a corrected or independently verified ledger. In several cases, a month heading and the accompanying text give different valuations, so both are shown rather than silently choosing one.
For additional context, Crunchbase reported that more than 100 companies globally reached unicorn status in 2024. That is a worldwide figure, not a U.S.-only count, and does not independently validate or refute TechCrunch’s headline total. Crunchbase also identified xAI as the highest-valued new unicorn of 2024, at $24 billion when it first joined Crunchbase’s Unicorn Board in May. Crunchbase’s 2024 unicorn summary.
Axios, citing PitchBook, reported 13 new U.S. AI unicorns from January 1 through June 25, 2024, with AI accounting for more than 40% of new private U.S. unicorns in the first half of the year. Those figures cover only the first half and should not be read as full-year totals. Axios’s report on first-half U.S. AI unicorns.
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December
- Fervo Energy — $1.4 billion: geothermal clean energy.
- Speak — $1 billion: real-time AI communications.
- Anysphere — $2.6 billion: AI coding.
- Ayar Labs — $1 billion: AI data.
November
- Physical Intelligence — $2.4 billion: AI robotics research.
- Writer — $1.9 billion: enterprise generative AI.
- Halcyon — $1 billion: anti-ransomware.
- Eon — $1.4 billion: backup software.
- Flex — $1.9 billion in the heading; $1.75 billion in the article text: rent-payment platform.
October
- EvenUp — $1 billion in the heading; $5 billion in the article text: legal technology.
- Nimble Robotics — $1 billion: AI robotics and autonomous logistics.
September
- Rentberry — $1 billion: long-term rental listings.
- Safe Superintelligence — $1 billion in the heading; $5 billion in the article text: AI research.
- 24M Technologies — $1.3 billion: battery technology.
- Twelve — $1 billion: clean jet fuel.
August
- Groq — $2.8 billion: AI chips.
- Altana Technologies — $1 billion: global supply chain technology. It also appears in TechCrunch’s July section.
- Story Protocol — $2.45 billion in the heading; $2.25 billion in the article text: blockchain and intellectual-property protocol.
- EliseAI — $1 billion: AI property management.
- Codeium — $1.3 billion in the heading; $1.25 billion in the article text: AI code completion and chat.
- HomeLight — $1.7 billion: real-estate marketplace.
July
- Aven — $1 billion: consumer credit card.
- Flo Health — $1 billion: fertility-tracking app.
- Altana Technologies — $1 billion: global supply chain management. This is a duplicate of its August entry in the same article.
- Chainguard — $1.1 billion in the heading; $1.12 billion in the article text: cybersecurity.
- Harvey — $1.5 billion: legal AI.
- Saronic Technologies — $1 billion: autonomous surface vessels and defense technology.
June
- Creatio — $1.2 billion: workflow automation.
- Huntress — $1.55 billion: managed cybersecurity and extended detection and response.
- xAI — $24 billion: AI and the Grok model.
- BillionToOne — $1 billion: disease-screening genetic testing.
May
- Altruist — $1.5 billion: investment management for independent registered investment advisers.
- Weka — $1.6 billion: data-storage software with AI use cases.
- Farcaster — $1 billion: open-source, blockchain-based social media.
- Sigma Computing — $1.5 billion: data analytics.
- Humanity Protocol — $1 billion: palm-scanning identity technology.
April
- Cyera — $1.5 billion: data security.
- Monad Labs — $3 billion: Ethereum-compatible blockchain technology.
- Nexamp — $1.5 billion in the heading; $1.08 billion in the article text: clean energy. The text associates the latter figure with a mixed debt and venture financing round.
- Grow Therapy — $1.4 billion: therapist-finder health technology.
- Cognition AI — $2 billion: AI software engineering, including Devin.
- Xaira Therapeutics — $2.7 billion: AI drug discovery.
- Flip — $1.19 billion: social commerce.
March
- io.net — $1 billion: decentralized GPU cloud service for AI.
- Perplexity — $1 billion in the heading; $1.04 billion in the article text: AI search. The text gives the latter figure after additional financing.
- Octane — $1.1 billion in the heading; $1.11 billion in the article text: financing for mowers and recreational vehicles. The text calls $1.11 billion a post-money valuation.
- Celestial AI — $1.2 billion: AI data technology.
- IntraBio — $1 billion: neurodegenerative-disease drug discovery.
- Liquid Death — $1.4 billion: beverage company.
February
- Blink Health — $1.3 billion in the heading; $1.28 billion in the article text: online pharmacy.
- NinjaOne — $1.9 billion: mobile-device management and security.
- Ascend Elements — $1.6 billion in the heading; $1.61 billion in the article text: sustainable batteries.
- Lambda — $1.5 billion in the heading; $1.52 billion in the article text: GPU cloud computing for AI.
- EigenLayer — $1.1 billion in the heading; $1 billion in the article text: Ethereum staking infrastructure.
- Figure — $2.6 billion: humanoid robotics.
- Together AI — $1.25 billion: cloud service for running open-source AI models.
- Bugcrowd — $1 billion: crowdsourced cybersecurity testing.
January
- ElevenLabs — $1 billion: AI text-to-speech and dubbing.
- Quantinuum — $5.3 billion: quantum-computing cloud service.
- Zūm — $1.3 billion: school transportation fleet management.
What the valuations do—and do not—mean
A private-company valuation is an estimate associated with a financing event, often reported as a post-money valuation after investment. It is not the same as cash raised, a guaranteed sale price, or a public share price available to investors. The entries above do not all specify the round amount, valuation basis or underlying source, so comparing the figures as if they were measured on identical terms would be misleading. For any particular company, the relevant next step is to check its financing announcement or the underlying database record.
The list also spans very different businesses—from AI and cybersecurity to health, robotics, energy, real estate, fintech and enterprise software. A $1 billion valuation is the threshold implied by the unicorn label, not a ranking of business quality or a measure of a startup’s financial health.
Quick Recap
Best Value
Rank #4
Rank #3
Rank #2
Read TechCrunch’s original month-by-month list.
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