About three years ago, a check for $1 trillion would theoretically 1 be enough to buy up all of the 100 most-valuable U.S. private, venture-backed startups.
Today, it wouldn’t even be enough to buy one, if it was the newly combined SpaceX and xAI, now valuing itself at $1.25 trillion. It would also fall short for purchasing both of the next two — OpenAI and Anthropic — at post-money valuations they’re reportedly seeking.
So how much would it take to buy the top 100 at current valuations? About $3.5 trillion, according to an estimate from private share marketplace Forge. 2
Call it the age of valuation escalation. Leading startups, traditionally known for their skill in growing businesses, are now demonstrating a similar mastery of scaling how much they’re worth.
It’s not exactly a new phenomenon, as top venture-backed companies have a long history of securing significant up rounds. What’s remarkable about the current era, of course, is the sheer size of the valuations.
The past couple months have offered a particularly fast-moving blur of reported valuation gains we thought might warrant a summary.
To illustrate, we’re highlighting gains in two categories: companies valued at $100 billion-plus (the biggest unicorns) and those valued at between $20 billion and $100 billion (the next-biggest unicorns). Both are seeing some big swings up and to the right.
The biggest unicorns
We’ll start with the biggest recent upward moves at the most highly valued U.S. companies, in order of valuation:
SpaceX: SpaceX acquired Elon Musk’s xAI last week in a transaction that will reportedly value the combined company at $1.25 trillion. The deal comes in advance of an anticipated IPO later this year.
OpenAI: The generative AI giant is reportedly in talks to raise $100 billion in fresh funding at a valuation of $750 billion or more. In October, the company secured financing at a $500 billion valuation.
Anthropic: The Claude chatbot developer and OpenAI rival has reportedly secured at least $10 billion for a new financing at a $350 billion valuation this year, and is said to be likely to raise a total of more than $20 billion.
Databricks: The AI and data unicorn announced Monday that it has raised fresh funding at a $134 billion valuation. The latest financing includes $5 billion in equity investment and $2 billion in debt funding. The company also said it crossed a $5.4 billion annual revenue run-rate.
Waymo: The autonomous driving company raised $16 billion in new funding last week at a $126 billion post-money valuation.
Stripe: The payments platform carried out a tender offer a year ago at a $91.5 billion valuation. It’s unclear what its most recent valuation would be, although market trends indicate it would likely be higher.
The next-biggest unicorns
Ripple: The blockchain and cryptocurrency company had a $40 billion valuation after a $500 million funding round in November.
Figure: The developer of general-purpose humanoid robots secured a $39 billion post-money valuation for its last financing, a $1 billion September Series C.
Ramp: The AI financing automation platform was valued at $32 billion in November, up from $22.5 billion just a few months earlier.
Safe Superintelligence: The AI startup was valued at $32 billion as part of a $2 billion financing in April.
Anduril Industries: The defense tech unicorn secured $2.5 billion in new funding at a $30.5 billion valuation in June.
Cerebras Systems: The AI processor developer picked up a $1 billion Series H round last week that set a post-money valuation for the company of approximately $23 billion.
Kraken: The crypto exchange was reportedly valued around $20 billion after a funding round in November.
Anysphere/Cursor: The company known for its Cursor AI coding platform announced in November that it raised $2.3 billion in Series D funding at a $29.3 billion post-money valuation.
Gains are quite recent
Looking at the companies in both the biggest unicorns and next-biggest unicorns categories, what’s striking, in addition to the huge valuations, is how recently so many of these companies set or secured these high numbers.
Just over a year ago, SpaceX’s valuation hit $350 billion following a closely watched secondary share sale. That was considered quite high at the time.
And just 14 months ago, OpenAI’s valuation was $157 billion. It was also considered quite high. Go figure.
What’s also noteworthy is that many of the next-biggest-unicorns secured their highest valuations to date in the last couple months of last year. That was prime-time for valuation escalation, perhaps in anticipation of an opening IPO window and growing investor consensus regarding early leaders in hot, emerging sectors.
Will these numbers hold up? Who knows. But one thing is clear: Anyone predicting a retraction for the “high” valuations attributed to leading unicorns a year or two ago has so far been mostly very wrong.
Related reading:
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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