We talked to 50+ VCs and analyzed funding data across every AI vertical. These are the companies building the next generation of artificial intelligence.
The Top 5
- Anthropic — Claude, the thinking person's AI. $20B+ valuation.
- Perplexity — AI search disrupting Google. $9B valuation.
- Mistral — Europe's open-model champion. $6B valuation.
- Cohere — enterprise-only AI infrastructure. $5B valuation.
- xAI — Grok and Tesla integration. $50B valuation.
Rising Stars
- Cursor (Anysphere) — AI code editor. 1M+ developers.
- Replicate — AI model deployment platform.
- Inflection — Pi, the most empathetic AI.
- Sakana AI — biological-inspired AI from Tokyo.
- Liquid AI — efficient foundation models from MIT.
Sectors to Watch
- AI for biology (Isomorphic Labs, Generate Biomedicines)
- AI agents for businesses (Adept, Imbue, MultiOn)
- AI hardware (Groq, Tenstorrent, Etched)
- AI video (Pika, Luma, Runway)
Where the Money Is Going
$120B+ in AI venture funding in 2025. Most goes to foundation models, but applied AI startups are catching up fast. Vertical AI (legal, medical, finance) is the next gold rush.
