A complete 195 firms joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board within the first half of 2026 — far surpassing counts seen because the second half of 2022. Already, H1 is above the brand new unicorn totals for all of 2025, when 193 firms have been minted with that standing.
On this bifurcated funding setting, we additionally see a variety in valuations, in addition to choose firms that raised a number of rounds at a major valuation enhance within the area of months.
Amongst this cohort, robotics and AI neolabs have been the main sectors for brand new unicorns. Different industries that stand out have been in monetary providers, healthcare and biotech in addition to AI infrastructure, AI deployment and devtools, protection, semiconductor and aerospace.
H1 new unicorns have added roughly $440 billion in worth to the board — 5% of the board’s present worth. These firms have raised $80 billion over time, representing 5% of funding raised by still-private, unicorn-valued firms.
Essentially the most helpful new unicorn this yr is China-based open-source mannequin developer DeepSeek, which was valued at $50 billion in its first exterior financing. Seychelles-based crypto alternate OKX, valued at $25 billion, is the second Most worthy firm to affix within the first half of this yr.
San Francisco-based OpenAI Deployment Co., majority owned by OpenAI and valued at $14 billion when it raised $4 billion from personal fairness, is within the third spot.
From this cohort, 4 firms have been valued as decacorns in H1, and an additional 5 have been valued above $5 billion, as of early August 2026.
Primarily based on tendencies for 2025 firms, we anticipate valuations for this cohort to climb considerably within the subsequent yr. For the 193 new unicorns that joined in 2025, 12 have been decacorns and one other 18 have been valued above $5 billion. 9 of these decacorns for this cohort turned $10 billion-plus-valued firms in 2026.
US leads, China picks up
The U.S. leads with 110 firms — 56% of latest unicorns in H1. China was in second place with 38 firms, a major surge from 10 new unicorns in 2025. The U.Okay. was the third-largest market with 13 firms becoming a member of.
By continent, North America accounts for 115 new unicorns, Asia with 50 and Europe with 27. Latin America, Oceania and Africa every rely for one.
Quick raises
Within the present frenzied funding setting, 19 of H1’s new unicorns raised quick follow-on rounds, usually in six months or much less, and doubled on an earlier valuation to succeed in a minimum of $2 billion or extra.
Notable among the many quick fundraisers are semiconductor startup Etched, which doubled its prior valuation to $10 billion from $5 billion simply six months earlier; protection tech unicorn Hadrian, whose valuation vaulted to $7.9 billion, up from its prior $1.6 billion valuation seven months earlier; and Valar Atomics, constructing nuclear vitality reactors for AI, was valued at $6 billion, up from $2 billion 4 months earlier.
AI momentum
Trillions in worth have been added to The Crunchbase Unicorn Board within the first half of the yr, together with from a number of the largest-ever enterprise funding offers. The primary six months of 2026 additionally notched the most important venture-backed exit of all time: SpaceX’s IPO.
Taken along with the fast follow-on raises at ever-larger valuations a few of these firms have achieved, it’s clear that the momentum across the fastest-growing firms has picked up considerably on this AI cycle.
Associated Crunchbase unicorn lists:
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Methodology
The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated record that features personal unicorn firms with post-money valuations of $1 billion or extra and is predicated on Crunchbase information. New firms are added to the Unicorn Board as they attain the $1 billion valuation mark as a part of a funding spherical.
The unicorn board doesn’t replicate inside firm valuations — equivalent to these set through a 409a course of for worker inventory choices — as these differ from, and usually tend to be decrease than, a priced funding spherical. We additionally don’t modify valuations based mostly on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as completely different buyers won’t worth the identical firm constantly throughout the similar quarter.
Funding to unicorn firms consists of all personal financings to firms which might be tagged as unicorns, in addition to those who have since graduated to The Exited Unicorn Board.
Exits analyzed right here solely embrace the primary time an organization exits.
Please notice that each one funding values are given in U.S. {dollars} until in any other case famous. Crunchbase converts foreign exchange to U.S. {dollars} on the prevailing spot price from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and different monetary occasions are reported. Even when these occasions have been added to Crunchbase lengthy after the occasion was introduced, international foreign money transactions are transformed on the historic spot worth.
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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