Given that a majority of U.S. startup investment goes to artificial intelligence companies these days, there’s clearly a wide variety of newcomers getting funded. So where are seed- and early-stage investors placing their bets?
To shed some light on this question, we analyzed a dataset of AI-focused startups that raised at least a few million dollars in seed- or early-stage funding this year.
While it was a varied crew, a few areas stood out as particularly popular. These include: back-office tools, robotics, drug development and healthcare automation.
Stepped-up early-stage funding to these areas comes as the most prominent generative AI startups have largely matured to later stage.
Much of the current early-stage generation of startups, by contrast, is focused less on broad, general purpose AI models and more on solving problems and automating tasks within specific industries.
Without further ado, here are the four areas that caught our eye.
No. 1: Back-office automation
Back-office automation was one of the more popular themes for AI-related seed- and early-stage investment, per Crunchbase data, and seemingly for good reason. Tasks related to accounting, payroll, compliance and other back-office functions pose a significant cost to all businesses.
But back-office burdens can be particularly daunting for smaller businesses, which lack the economies of scale of larger rivals. As such, that’s where a number of startups are focusing their endeavors.
For a sense of where funding is going, we put together a sample list of 10 companies that raised seed- or early-stage rounds this year with a back-office automation focus.
No. 2: Robotics
Anyone who’s ever performed a dull, dirty or difficult physical task has probably fantasized about having a robot take over. In recent quarters, a surge of funding to startups at the intersection of AI and robotics means that fantasy is now poised to move at least closer to reality.
Per Crunchbase data, we’re seeing a particularly strong wave of investment activity at seed and early stage. To illustrate, we put together a sample list of 14 companies funded so far this year.
No. 3: AI tools for healthcare
High on the wish list of many health providers is the ability to spend more time providing care and less on recordkeeping and compliance-related tasks. A slew of recently funded startups at the intersection of healthcare and AI are looking to assist in this goal with tools to automate some of the more tedious and repetitive tasks.
To illustrate, we used Crunchbase to assemble a representative sample list of 10 companies in this area that raised seed- or early-stage funding.
That list, however, is only a small portion of the full population of startups in the space funded this year, for which we also provide a sample query.
No. 4: Drug development and medical research
The intersection of AI and biotech is also a vibrant area for seed- and early-stage funding.
So far in 2025, this has manifested most noticeably in a series of megarounds for Lila Sciences, a Cambridge, Massachusetts, startup working on what it calls a “scientific superintelligence platform” for life sciences, chemistry and materials science.
Beyond Lila, however, a raft of other startups in AI and biotech have also raised good-sized seed- and early-stage rounds this year. Below, we aggregated a sample of 10 companies that stood out.
But wait, there’s more
While this article focused on four investment themes, there were quite a few more that stood out in our query. These included legal tech, go-to-market offerings, chip design, and innovations around AI-enabled voice and audio.
As is typical at seed and early stage, the promise of all these areas sounds quite enticing. We’ll see in a few years, however, if visions of a less tedious back-office, more robot-enabled workforce, more streamlined healthcare system, and faster and more effective medical research come to fruition.
Related Crunchbase lists and queries:
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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