AI Leads For New Unicorns In June 

Six companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in June 2023, half of them from the AI sector.

June’s new unicorn count is down from the 32 new unicorns minted in June 2022 and the 53 new unicorns born in June 2021. Since July 2022, new unicorn counts have fallen drastically and, starting in November, have settled primarily in the single digits.

A total of 44 new unicorns joined the board in the first half of 2023. They collectively added $56 billion in value to the board. Over the life of these companies, they’ve raised $11 billion.

Compare these new entrants to the first half of 2022, when 151 companies joined, and to H1 2021, when counts soared with 295 companies joining.

Leading sectors in 2023

A quarter of new unicorns this year, 11 companies, are native AI companies. Other trending unicorn sectors include energy companies (totaling seven), health care and biotech (six companies in each), and semiconductor companies (four).

June’s new unicorns

Let’s look at the companies that joined in June.

AI

• The newest to unicorn is months old Light Years Beyond, a Beijing-based generative AI tool founded by Meituan co-founder Wang Huiwen. It was funded at a unicorn valuation, then acquired by Meituan for $234 million at the end of June. It raised a Series A extension  in June which valued the company at $1.2 billion. This followed an initial Series A raised months earlier.
• Typeface, a 1-year-old AI content creation platform for enterprises, raised a $100 million Series B led by Salesforce Ventures 1at a $1 billion valuation. The funding announcement was partly generated by Typeface’s own AI tool. Participants in the current round include Lightspeed Venture Partners, Madrona, GV, Menlo Ventures and M12. Salesforce and Google Cloud will offer Typeface services to its customers. The San Francisco-based company raised its $65 million Series A four months earlier, led by Lightspeed.
• Six-year-old Synthesia, a generative AI video company based out of London, was valued at $1 billion. It raised a $90 million Series C funding led by Accel. NVentures, Nvidia’s venture capital arm, participated, as did existing investors Kleiner Perkins, GV and FirstMark. In 2019, the company’s technology was used in a David Beckham malaria campaign that “faked” him speaking in multiple languages.

E-commerce

• Two-year-old Cart.com is an Austin-based e-commerce and logistics delivery platform for brands and e-commerce sites selling direct to consumers. The company raised a $60 million Series C at a valuation of $1.3 billion. Cart.com generated revenue of $180 million in 2022 and is expected to grow revenue more than 39% in 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Mining

• KoBold Metals, a 5-year-old company that uses AI for mining minerals used in electric vehicle batteries, raised a $195 million led by T. Rowe Price valuing the company at  $1.2  billion. Existing investors in the Berkeley, California-based company include Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Bond.

Energy

• Solar and power box company 1Komma5º, based in Hamburg, has raised $200 million with an option for investors to invest another $200 million to help households manage their energy. The 2-year-old company was valued at $1 billion in this funding led by G2 Venture Partners.

Related Crunchbase unicorn queries

• The Crunchbase Private Unicorn Company List (1,462)
• Emerging Unicorn Companies  (383)
• Exited Unicorns (430)

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.

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