Eleven new companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in March, adding around $16 billion in value to the board. Another $200 billion in value was added via up rounds for companies already on the board, and March was a strong exit month for unicorn companies.
Let’s dive in.
Exits
In total, seven companies — collectively valued at around $48 billion as private companies — left the board last month via IPOs or M&A deals.
They include New Jersey-based CoreWeave, an AI datacenter provider that was last valued at $23 billion as a private company in 2024. It went public at around the same valuation.
Henan, China-based beverage chain brand Mixuebingcheng also went public at a value of $9.8 billion. Its last known private valuation was just over $3 billion.
Five unicorn companies were acquired in March. They include the largest acquisition for a private company ever: cybersecurity company Wiz’s purchase by Google for $32 billion.
In further M&A news, enterprise task automation company Moveworks was acquired by ServiceNow for $2.9 billion, and Ergo Group acquired health insurance provider Next Insurance for $2.6 billion.
Model oversight company Weights & Biases was acquired by CoreWeave for $1.8 billion in advance of CoreWeave’s IPO. And Denmark-based Saxo Bank, an online trading platform, was acquired by wealth manager J. Safra Sarasin for $1.2 billion.
Up rounds
OpenAI and Anthropic, moved up the ranks on the board from significant valuation hikes in March.
OpenAI, valued at $300 billion in a round led by SoftBank, added an unprecedented $143 billion in value in the six-month period since October when it was last valued at $157 billion.
Competitor Anthropic, recently valued at $61.5 billion, added $43 billion to its value in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. That’s also a big jump from its last known valuation in January 2024, when it was valued at $18.4 billion.
The third-largest increase was for Flock Safety, a law enforcement surveillance platform that was valued at $7.2 billion in a round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. That marks an increase from its $4 billion valuation with its 2022 Series E round. Drone defense developer Shield AI also increased its valuation by $2.5 billion since its 2023 round, and coding startup Cognition added $2 billion in just under a year, among others.
New unicorns
Of the 11 companies to join in March, nine are U.S.-based. Hong Kong and Mexico each minted a single unicorn. New unicorns hailed from many different sectors, with financial services leading with two companies.
Four of the new unicorns are well capitalized and have raised $500 million or more in funding to date: Nerdio ($625 million), Fleetio ($620 million), Celestial AI ($589 million) and Insilico Medicine ($511 million).
March’s minted unicorns
Here are the 11 newly minted March unicorns, by sector.
Financial services
- Mexican digital bank Plata raised a $160 million Series A led by Brooklyn, New York-based Kora that valued the company at $1.5 billion. The 2-year-old Mexico City-based company was just awarded its banking license in December 2024.
- Assured Insurance Technologies, an insurance technology company, raised a growth-stage funding. The 6-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.
AI infrastructure
- Celestial AI, an optical interconnect for AI data center processors, raised a $250 million Series C led by Fidelity, valuing the 5-year-old Santa Clara, California-based company at $2.5 billion.
Govtech
- Peregrine Technologies, a data integration platform designed to reduce crime and manage disasters for state and local governments, raised a $190 million Series C led by Sequoia Capital. The 7-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $2.5 billion.
Robotics
Logistics
- Fleetio, which makes software for fleet maintenance, raised a $450 million Series D led by Elephant and Goldman Sachs Alternatives. The funding financed the acquisition of maintenance authorization network Auto Integrate to provide end-to-end services for fleet operators. The 14-year-old Birmingham, Alabama-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
Media and entertainment
- Underdog Fantasy, a sports gaming company, raised a $70 million Series C led by Spark Capital. The 5-year-old Brooklyn, New York-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.
Cloud Services
- Nerdio, which offers IT management for remote work using Microsoft products, raised a $500 million Series C led by General Atlantic. Based in Chicago, the 9-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.
SaaS
- BuildOps, which makes software for contractors to save time on business processes, raised a $127 million Series C led by Meritech Capital Partners. The 6-year-old Santa Monica, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.
Web3
- Endless, which makes a protocol for Web2 companies to become Web3, raised a $110 million growth-stage funding led by blockchain investor Foresight Ventures. The 1-year-old Hong Kong-based company was valued at $1 billion.
Healthcare
- Insilico Medicine, an AI drug developer for cancer and age-related diseases, raised a $110 million Series E led by Hong Kong-based firms Pudong Chuangtou and Value Partners. The 11-year-old Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company was valued at $1 billion.
Related Crunchbase unicorn lists
Related reading:
Methodology
The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are added to the Unicorn Board as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.
The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.
Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to The Exited Unicorn Board.
Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.
Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.
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