AI Services And Robotics Lead Diverse Crop Of 29 New May Unicorns As SpaceX, Anthropic And OpenAI Line Up Blockbuster Exits

A total of 29 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in May, but the standout trend was not new AI models, but rather the businesses helping enterprises put AI to work.

OpenAI and Anthropic each launched multibillion-dollar deployment ventures staffed with forward-deployed engineers, while a long list of startups building AI infrastructure, autonomous software and robotics also reached unicorn status. Together, the new entrants point to where investors increasingly see value creation: turning AI advances into real-world applications and pairing software intelligence with physical automation.

Beyond AI, new unicorns were minted across many sectors including healthcare, quantum, aerospace, financial services, manufacturing, e-commerce and energy.

China dominated in the robotics sector, while Canada did so in quantum. The single new legaltech unicorn last month was from Brazil. OnlyFans also joined the board this past month, as the adult creator content company raised its first external financing.

Of the new unicorns, 17 are U.S-based, while four each are based in China and the UK. Two new unicorns joined the board from Canada, as one each from India and Brazil.

Unicorn IPOs

The board’s total value is undergoing rapid fluctuations amid lofty new valuations for some of the largest new unicorns, as well as high-profile exits to the public markets.

The Unicorn Board reached $9.9 trillion in value in May, as Anthropic moved ahead of OpenAI to become the second most valued private company after SpaceX. On the heels of the funding, Anthropic privately filed for an IPO, followed shortly thereafter by OpenAI’s own confidential filing.

SpaceX is expected to list this Friday, in what would be the largest-ever IPO. Its listing will erase more than one-tenth of value from the board as the the Elon Musk-led company exits the private markets.

Chip company Cerebras went public in May in a blockbuster IPO that valued the company at $56.4 billion, well above its last private valuation of $23 billion just three months earlier in February.

New unicorns in May

Here are May’s new unicorn companies, including 10 companies that are less than 3-years old:

AI deployment

San Francisco-based OpenAI Deployment Company raised a $4 billion private equity round led by TPG with co-leads Advent International, Bain Capital and Brookfield. The new company is majority owned by OpenAI with partnerships with 19 investment firms and consultancies. OpenAI acquired Tomoro, with its 150 forward-deployed engineers to support enterprises in this effort. The less than 1-year-old-based company was valued at $14 billion in the new funding, which it said will be used to scale operations and acquire companies.
Anthropic Applied AI JV raised a $1.5 billion private equity funding to build an AI services company to work with companies to bring Claude into their operations. Each of the co-leads — Anthropic, private equity investor Blackstone Group and legal firm Hellman & Friedman — invested $300 million into the round. Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital also invested in the joint venture. The less than 1-year-old-based, San Francisco-based company’s valuation was not disclosed.
Exa, a company building search for AI agents, raised a $250 million Series C led by Andreessen Horowitz. The 5-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $2.2 billion and is used by coding agents, go-to-market agents and chat agents.
Boston-based autonomous AI software developer Blitzy raised a $200 million Series A led by Northzone. Blitzy’s platform reverse engineers existing code bases to build a knowledge graph and thereby enable autonomous development of software projects over days or weeks that can re-engineer and test complicated systems and deal with technical debt. The 2-year-old company was valued at $1.4 billion and is said to be used by dozens of global 2,000 companies.
OpenRouter, a routing technology for applications to select from 400-plus models, raised a $113 million Series B led by Alphabet’s CapitalG. Investors in the round included a host of corporate venture firms including NVentures, ServiceNow Ventures, MongoDB Ventures, SnowflakeVentures and Databricks Ventures. The 3-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.

Robotics

Hark raised a $700 million Series A led by Parkway Venture Capital. The company plans to build personalized robotics developing its own models, training and hardware. The 1-year-old San Jose, California-based company was valued at $6 billion. It was founded by CEO Brett Adcock, founder of humanoid robotics unicorn Figure.
Guangdong, China-based Tianji, a dual arm robotics developer, raised a $147 million Series B led by Hillhouse Capital and Meituan Strategic Investment. It said its new funding will be used for R&D, production and a global sales network. The 10-year-old company was valued at $1.5 billion.

Shanghai-based Agilink has raised four funding rounds since it was spun out of Agibot in January, and reached a valuation of $1 billion. Agilink is focused on dexterous hand technology. The funding will be used for model development, data and hardware with the spinout able to license to the broader robotics market.
Botshare, a robot leasing and rental platform, raised a Series A funding. The less than 1-year-old Pudong, China-based company was valued at $1 billion. It is looking to expand from event rentals to warehousing, logistics and park operations.

Healthcare

MiRus, a treatment provider for cardiovascular and orthopedic disease, raised a $1.5 billion corporate round led by Boston Scientific. Boston Scientific has an option to acquire its heart valve technology. The 10-year-old Georgia, U.S.-based company was valued at $4.4 billion.
Retro Biosciences, a longevity biotech company, seeking to extend human life by a decade, with therapeutics targeting age related disease raised the initial close of funding round led by 4P Capital. The 5-year-old Redwood City, California-based company was valued at a pre-money valuation of $1.8 billion.
Vi Labs, launched a suite of AI agents for healthcare built from its clinical data, raised $146 million in equity and secondary funding led by Revelstoke Capital Partners. The 15-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.

Quantum computing

Vancouver-based Photonic, a quantum computing company that combines silicon-based qubits with native photonic interconnects, raised a $70 million extension funding led by Luxembourg-based Planet First Partners. Photonic raised $130 million in January. The 9-year-old company was valued at $2 billion.
Quebec-based Nord Quantique, which says it addresses quantum error correction in each qubit, raised a $30 million funding. The company has raised a mix of government grants and venture capital. The 6-year-old company was valued at $1.4 billion.

Aerospace

Cowboy Space, a builder of rockets to deploy data centers in space, raised a $305 million Series B led by Index Ventures. The 2-year-old San Carlos, California-based company, formerly called Aetherflux, was valued at $2 billion. The company plans to launch its first satellite later this year. Its technology entails using the upper stage of the rocket as a low-earth orbit satellite that uses solar energy to create 1-megawatt data centers in space.
Hyderabad, India-based Skyroot Aerospace, a rocket company that delivers satellites into space, raised a $60 million funding led by Singapore-based GIC and Menlo Park, California-based Sherpalo Ventures. Skyroot is planning the maiden voyage of Vikram-1 in June. The 7-year-old company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Financial services

Corgi Insurance, an AI insurance provider for startups, raised a $160 million Series B led by TCV. The 2-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion and plans to go after the trucking industry next.
Intelligent wealth management platform Farther raised a $150 million Series D led by General Atlantic. With $23 billion in recruited assets, it is built to create an all in one system for advisors. The 7-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Manufacturing

Amca, a manufacturer of aerospace and defense components, raised a $300 million Series B led by Caffeinated Capital. The 1-year-old El Segundo, California-based company, which aims to strengthen America’s industrial base, operates six factories across the U.S. and was valued at $1 billion.
SendCutSend, likewise says it is building out American manufacturing with a rapid custom manufacturing software to production platform. It raised its first institutional funding of $110 million led by Sequoia Capital, Paradigm and Stripe founders John Collison and Patrick Collison. The 7-year-old Reno, Nevada-based company supports small-scale inventors to large-scale enterprises and has shipped 30 million parts to 300,000 customers. The company was valued at $1 billion.

E-commerce

RADAR, a real-time inventory management platform, raised a $170 million Series B led by Gideon Strategic Partners and Nimble Partners. Its sensor technology tracks items and its precise location and movement in the store. Retail customers include American Eagle Outfitters and Old Navy. The 13-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1 billion.

London-based Fresha, a booking service for hair salons, beauty experts and wellness salons raised a $80 million Series C led by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. The 11-year-old London-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Energy

Startorus Fusion, a nuclear fusion startup spun out of Tsinghua University, raised a $74 million Series A funding. The 4-year-old China-based company was valued at $1 billion.
Nyobolt, a provider of fast charging batteries, raised a $60 million Series C led by strategic investor Symbotic. The batteries are used in data centers, robotics, electric vehicles and grid infrastructure. The 7-year-old Cambridge, UK-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Social media

Creator platform OnlyFans raised its first external funding, a $535 million private equity round led by Architect Capital, which now owns around 16% of the company. The 10-year-old London-based adult content platform was valued at $3.2 billion. Its CEO Keily Blair noted the company has paid out $25 billion to creators since 2016.

Data center

Modular data center builder Armada raised a $230 million Series B led by 8090 Industries, BlackRock and Overmatch Ventures. In partnership with Johnson Controls the company plans to build capacity for secure data centers useful for military and remote manufacturing environments. The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $2.2 billion. Customer booking for fiscal year 2026 was up 540% from 2025.

Legaltech

São Paulo-based Enter, a Brazilian AI legal platform to manage company litigation, raised a $100 million Series B led by Founders Fund that valued the 2-year-old company at $1.2 billion. Enter counts Nubank, Airbnb and LatAm Airlines among its customers, who use its technology along with law firms to handle litigation paperwork and settlements. Around 300,000 lawsuits have been managed through the platform. Sequoia Capital led the Series A.

Cryptocurrency

GSR, a digital asset trader, raised a $150 million funding led by SC Ventures, UK bank Standard Charter’s fintech arm. The deal brings digital assets into banking and represents GSRs first strategic external investor. The 12-year-old London-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Security

Socket, a security platform built for an open-source automated coding environment, raised a $60 million Series C led by Thrive Capital. The platform is adopted by companies including Anthropic, xAI, Replit, Cursor, and Vercel and supports 27,000 organizations. Its socket firewall product is free to block malicious packages. The 6-year-old Stanford, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists:

The Crunchbase Private Unicorn Company List (1,785)
Exited unicorns (619)
New unicorns in 2026 (160)
New unicorns in 2025 (189)
New unicorns in 2024 (118)
New unicorns in 2023 (102)
Unicorns in the U.S. (921)
Unicorns in Asia (525)
European unicorns (241)
Unicorns from LatAm (39)
Emerging unicorn leaderboard (486)

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.

Illustration: Dom Guzman