Report: 47 startups jjoin unicorn club in 2026—1 in 4 are AI companies

Global venture capital is on track for a historic year in 2026, driven overwhelmingly by artificial intelligence. By the end of March, AI startups had already secured more than $220 billion in funding. It is approaching the total raised by the entire global AI sector in 2025.

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This unprecedented capital influx is dramatically reshaping the startup ecosystem. Predictably, it is accelerating the creation of new unicorns at a pace rarely seen before.

The fastest growth is concentrated in AI itself and the adjacent technologies that enable and scale it, signaling a sustained realignment of investment priorities. This is according to a recent report exploring the world of private businesses valued at US$1 billion or more, known as unicorns.

For this report, the team at BestBrokers analysed the Crunchbase Unicorn Board’s list of private startups with a valuation of at least US$1 billion, or the so-called ‘unicorns’.

Data was also aggregated from PitchBook and several other sources on the largest private company funding rounds and company valuations throughout 2025 and 2026.

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The full dataset used is available on Google Drive via this link.

47 New Unicorns Born in 2026 Already

Data shows that 47 startups have crossed the $1 billion valuation threshold so far in 2026, officially joining the unicorn club. Artificial intelligence companies account for roughly a quarter of these firms. They represent the largest share of any sector, followed by HealthTech and Cloud & Infrastructure.

The most valuable of these new unicorns is the California-based AI lab humans&, which reached a $4.5 billion valuation after securing backing from a broad group of venture capital firms and prominent technology investors, including NVIDIA, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Emerson Collective, and SV Angel, alongside individual investors such as Jeff Bezos and Marissa Mayer.

Other highlights from the report

• The most valuable new unicorns in 2026 are AI companies, led by California-based humans& at a $4.5 billion valuation, followed by Ricursive Intelligence, which reached $4 billion after raising $300 million in a Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Outside AI, Rain, a Bahrain-based crypto platform, became the most valuable blockchain startup among the new unicorn entries at $1.9 billion. It is followed by Bedrock Robotics in the U.S. and the UK’s Roark, both valued at $1.8 billion, reflecting continued investment in automation and defence technology.
• Out of the 47 new unicorns in 2026, roughly a quarter (12) are AI companies, making it the dominant sector by a significant margin. HealthTech follows with 6 companies (around 13%), reflecting sustained investor focus on digital care delivery and technology-enabled healthcare services. Cloud & Infrastructure accounts for 9% of the total with 4 companies. Semiconductors, Cybersecurity, SpaceTech, and the Cryptocurrency sectors each produced 3 new unicorns, while the remaining firms span a diverse mix of industries such as Biotech, Edtech, and Logistics.

USA leads with vast majority of new unicorns

• The vast majority of new unicorns in 2026 are based in the United States, with 36 of the 47 companies headquartered in the country. Outside the U.S., China has produced three new unicorns so far this year. They include AI and robotics firm Spirit AI, semiconductor company Anhui Shenji Technology, and general-purpose robotics company AI2 Robotics. Each is currently valued at $1.4 billion. The UK has added two unicorns, including defence technology firm Roark, valued at $1.8 billion, and chip developer Olix Computing, which has reached a $1 billion valuation. The remaining six unicorns are spread across Belgium, Australia, Sweden, Bahrain, Israel and Singapore, with one company in each country.
• Space research startup Varda Space Industries is the most heavily funded of the 47 new unicorns in 2026, having raised $578.3 million in venture capital to date. Other heavily funded startups that reached unicorn status this year include aviation software & hardware maker Skyryse with $542.9 million raised. Others are U.S. AI lab humans& at $480M in VC funding, China-based AI company Spirit AI with $472.8 million, and digital mental healthcare provider Talkiatry with $429 million.

Quick graphical illustration of the New Unicorns

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Current boom is building the foundations of the AI economy

‘With AI startups already attracting over $220 billion in funding globally by March, nearly matching the total raised across all sectors in 2025, it is clear that investor appetite in AI is here to stay. This is reflected in the unicorn pipeline, where AI accounts for the largest share of new entrants and the highest valuations, led by humans& at $4.5 billion. At the same time, the strong presence of cloud infrastructure, semiconductors, and cybersecurity startups highlights a parallel trend: investors are aggressively backing the underlying systems required to scale AI, signalling that the current boom is as much about building the foundations of the AI economy as it is about the models themselves,” says Alan Goldberg from BestBrokers.com.

The report was based on the latest data from the business analytics platform Crunchbase as of March 2026. Additional data on VC investments, funding rounds, and company valuations was collected from Pitchbook.

More information on private companies and their valuations, as well as the complete methodology, can be found in the full report. The raw dataset is also available on Google Drive via the following link.