If the second half of 2025 was about diversification into deep tech and defense, the first half was defined by one word: Scale.
H1 2025 kicked off with the "AI Supercycle," a frantic period of capital deployment where mega-rounds became the new normal. Investors, fearing they would miss the platform shift of the decade, poured billions into foundational models and the infrastructure required to run them. However, amidst the AI frenzy, we also saw the maturation of Climate Tech and Robotics, with several hardware-heavy startups graduating to unicorn status.
Below is Part 2 of our retrospective, covering the startups that defined the market from January through July 2025.
July 2025: The Mid-Year Surge
By mid-year, the focus shifted from pure software to "Embodied AI"—intelligence affecting the physical world—along with a resurgence in SaaS growth rounds.
Figure AI $2.6 Billion
Sector: Robotics
The race for general-purpose humanoids heated up in July. Figure AI secured a $675M Series B backed by Microsoft and OpenAI to deploy their autonomous workers into automotive manufacturing plants.
CarbonRe $1.5 Billion
Sector: Climate Tech
Decarbonizing heavy industry is no longer just a goal; it's a business model. CarbonRe uses AI to optimize cement and steel production. They raised a $200M Series B to scale their deployment across Europe and Asia.
Linear $1.3 Billion
Sector: Productivity
The cult-favorite project management tool finally took significant venture capital to attack the enterprise market. Their $150M Series C valuation proves that distinct design and speed still command a premium in SaaS.
Orbital $1.1 Billion
Sector: Defense / Manufacturing
Orbital automates the manufacturing of complex defense components. With supply chains under pressure, their $110M Series B was oversubscribed by investors looking for "American Dynamism" plays.
Harvey $2 Billion
Sector: Legal AI
The leading AI platform for elite law firms. Harvey raised a $250M Series C to expand its specialized LLMs, which are now used by 80% of the Am Law 100.
Vanta $3.5 Billion
Sector: Compliance
Automated security compliance is essential in a regulated world. Vanta raised a $300M Series D to become the trust management layer for the internet.
Krea $1 Billion
Sector: Generative Design
Blurring the line between rendering and generation, Krea’s real-time AI design tool raised a $60M Series B, becoming a favorite for architects and product designers.
Deal $1.2 Billion
Sector: Fintech
A global payroll and compliance platform built for the remote-first era. Deal raised $150M to consolidate international hiring and payments.
June 2025: Dev Tools & Data
June was dominated by the "picks and shovels" thesis, as companies building the rails for the AI economy saw massive markups.
Supabase $2.8 Billion
Sector: Dev Tools
The open-source Firebase alternative has become the default backend for the AI generation. Supabase raised a $300M Series D to expand their edge functions and vector database capabilities.
CoreWeave $18 Billion
Sector: Cloud Infrastructure
The specialized cloud for GPU compute. CoreWeave raised a massive $2B debt and equity round, cementing its status as the primary challenger to AWS for AI workloads.
Dust $1.2 Billion
Sector: Enterprise AI
Dust focuses on breaking down data silos within companies, allowing LLMs to access internal knowledge safely. They crossed the unicorn threshold with an $80M Series B led by Index Ventures.
Synthesia $1.9 Billion
Sector: Generative Media
Moving beyond avatars, Synthesia’s H1 update allowed for full-body, emotive AI video generation. They raised a $250M Series C to compete directly with traditional video production studios.
Weights & Biases $2.5 Billion
Sector: MLOps
The developer platform for machine learning. As every company becomes an AI company, W&B raised $200M Series D to become the standard for model tracking.
Unstructured $1.1 Billion
Sector: Data ETL
Unstructured helps LLMs digest messy enterprise data (PDFs, PPTs, HTML). They raised a $75M Series B to solve the "data ingestion bottleneck" for RAG applications.
Pinecone $3 Billion
Sector: Database
The vector database that powers long-term memory for AI. Pinecone raised $350M Series C to support the explosion of RAG-based enterprise apps.
May 2025: The Biotech & Health Breakout
May provided a stark reminder that software isn't the only sector changing the world, with massive rounds in biology and healthcare.
Retro Biosciences $1.8 Billion
Sector: Longevity
With a mission to add 10 years to the healthy human lifespan, Retro closed a massive $400M round. Their focus on cellular reprogramming has attracted significant attention from Silicon Valley elites.
Isomorphic $3 Billion
Sector: Digital Biology
Building on the success of AlphaFold, Isomorphic is using AI to accelerate drug discovery. A $500M strategic round cemented their position as the leader in "AI-first" biology.
Hume $1.1 Billion
Sector: Empathic AI
Hume is building AI that understands human emotion through voice and facial cues. Their $90M Series B signals a growing interest in making AI interactions feel more "human."
Spring Health $4 Billion
Sector: Mental Health
Using data to precision-match patients with care. Spring Health raised $300M Series E as employers doubled down on mental health benefits.
BioAge $1.2 Billion
Sector: Biotech
BioAge maps the molecular pathways of aging to treat chronic diseases. They raised a $170M Series D to move their lead compounds into Phase 3 trials.
Maven Clinic $2.5 Billion
Sector: Women's Health
The largest virtual clinic for women's and family health raised $200M, expanding their support for fertility and menopause care globally.
Transcarent $1.5 Billion
Sector: Health Tech
A comprehensive health and care experience for employees. They raised $125M Series D to simplify the complex US healthcare navigation stack.
April 2025: Crypto & Fintech Renaissance
After a quiet 2024, crypto infrastructure roared back to life in April, driven by institutional adoption and new primitives.
Monad $4.5 Billion
Sector: Blockchain L1
Promising parallel execution and extreme throughput, Monad is the challenger to Ethereum and Solana. They raised a staggering $225M Series A to launch their mainnet.
Ramp $9.5 Billion
Sector: Fintech
While technically an older player, Ramp’s new valuation in April following a $600M Series E solidified its dominance. They are now effectively the operating system for modern finance.
Magic $1.5 Billion
Sector: AI Coding
Magic is building an "AI colleague" for software engineering with an ultra-long context window. They raised $115M Series B to help developers write code faster than ever before.
Berachain $2 Billion
Sector: DeFi
The cult-following L1 blockchain focused on "Proof of Liquidity." Berachain raised $150M Series B to launch their mainnet, attracting massive liquidity from the DeFi community.
Wormhole $2.5 Billion
Sector: Crypto Infrastructure
The interoperability protocol connecting different blockchains. Wormhole raised $225M to secure cross-chain communication.
EigenLayer $5 Billion
Sector: Ethereum Restaking
Unlocking the security of Ethereum for other protocols. EigenLayer raised $300M in a round led by a16z, creating a new "restaking" primitive in crypto.
Tensor $1 Billion
Sector: NFT Trading
The pro-trading platform for Solana NFTs. Tensor crossed the unicorn mark with a $60M raise, dominating the Solana ecosystem.
March 2025: The Hardware Hard Tech
Groq $3.2 Billion
Sector: AI Hardware
As the demand for fast inference skyrocketed, Groq’s LPU (Language Processing Unit) became the hottest chip on the market. They raised $600M to scale manufacturing.
Rain $1.2 Billion
Sector: Neuromorphic Computing
Rain is designing chips that mimic the human brain. Their energy-efficient architecture attracted a $120M Series B to power edge AI devices.
Hadrian $1.4 Billion
Sector: Industrial Tech
Hadrian is modernizing the precision machining supply chain. Their automated factories produce parts for rockets and jets 10x faster than legacy shops.
Saronic $1.5 Billion
Sector: Defense Tech
Building autonomous surface vessels (ASVs) for the Navy. Saronic raised $200M Series C to scale production of their maritime drones.
Lightmatter $2.2 Billion
Sector: Photonic Computing
Using light instead of electricity to compute. Lightmatter raised $300M Series D to build the fastest, most energy-efficient AI interconnects in the world.
Slingshot Aerospace $1 Billion
Sector: Space Tech
The "air traffic control" for space. Slingshot raised $85M to map space debris and protect orbital assets.
Shield AI $3.8 Billion
Sector: Defense
The maker of the "Hivemind" AI pilot. Shield AI raised another $400M to deploy autonomous teaming capabilities for aircraft.
February 2025: Consumer AI Applications
Perplexity $4 Billion
Sector: Search
The "Google Killer" narrative gained real traction in February. Perplexity raised a $500M Series C at a $4B valuation as their answer engine started eating into search market share.
ElevenLabs $2.2 Billion
Sector: AI Audio
The standard for AI voice generation. ElevenLabs expanded into sound effects and dubbing, raising a $180M Series B.
Ideogram $1.1 Billion
Sector: Generative Art
Known for its superior typography handling in images, Ideogram raised an $85M Series A to challenge Midjourney and DALL-E.
Cohere $6 Billion
Sector: Enterprise AI
Focused strictly on enterprise data privacy, Cohere raised $500M Series D to bring custom LLMs to the Fortune 500.
Character.ai $5 Billion
Sector: Consumer AI
The leader in personalized AI companions. They raised $400M to improve memory and voice capabilities for their millions of daily active users.
Writer $1.9 Billion
Sector: Enterprise Generative AI
A full-stack generative AI platform for branding and content. Writer raised $200M Series C to help marketing teams automate content production at scale.
Glean $2.5 Billion
Sector: Enterprise Search
The "Google for work." Glean raised $250M Series D as companies scrambled to organize their internal data for the AI era.
January 2025: The "Thinking Machines" Shockwave
The year began with the single largest venture round in history, setting the tone for the aggressive capital deployment that followed.
Thinking Machines $28 Billion
Sector: AGI Research
In a move that stunned the market, Thinking Machines emerged from stealth with a $10 Billion capital injection led by a consortium of sovereign wealth funds and big tech giants. Founded by a breakaway team of former OpenAI and DeepMind heavyweights, the company is building "System 2" reasoning models.
Mistral $7 Billion
Sector: Foundation Models
Europe’s AI champion started the year strong, raising $600M to open-source their newest "Large" model, keeping the pressure on closed-source US competitors.
1X $1.2 Billion
Sector: Robotics
Another win for embodied AI. 1X raised $100M Series B to mass-produce their neo-androids designed for home and office assistance.
Together AI $2.5 Billion
Sector: Cloud / AI
The cloud platform for open-source AI. Together AI raised $300M to build the decentralized compute layer for the open-source community.
Aleph Alpha $1.5 Billion
Sector: Sovereign AI
Germany's answer to OpenAI. Focused on B2B and government data sovereignty, they raised $200M to serve the European industrial sector.
Sakana AI $1.3 Billion
Sector: Evolutionary AI
Based in Tokyo, Sakana is using evolutionary algorithms to merge models. They raised $100M Series A, putting Japanese AI back on the map.
Qdrant $1 Billion
Sector: Vector Database
Another winner in the RAG stack. Qdrant raised $80M Series B to scale their high-performance, Rust-based vector search engine.
Conclusion
Looking back at H1, the velocity of capital formation was unprecedented. We saw a clear bifurcation in the market: companies that could integrate AI into physical workflows (Robotics, Defense, Bio) and those building the massive infrastructure required to support the next generation of intelligence (Chips, Energy, Foundation Models).
The "Thinking Machines" raise in January served as the starter pistol, but the depth of the 2025 class proves that innovation is happening far beyond just LLMs.
Missed Part 1? Catch up on the Q3 and Q4 leaders here: The 2025 Unicorn Class: Part 1
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