- The Pulse by 42neurons
- Posts
- $1T combined valuation of 10 major AI startups
$1T combined valuation of 10 major AI startups
Hey there!
Welcome back to The Pulse, where we dive into interesting AI stories and trends backed by data, all presented through simple visuals.

> 10 AI firms now valued at ~$1T combined
> absorbed $78.5B till now (+$100B including OpenAI x Nvidia compute deal)
> these 10 account for ~37% of global private AI unicorn valuation ($2.7T total acc. CB Insights)
> only 3 generate multi-billion ARR: OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks
> Figure, Safe Superintelligence, Thinking Machines still pre-revenue & pre-product
> valuations often bundled with compute infra + capital seen as strategic positioning - compute access, model integration, defensive leverage
> FT, CNN: bubble narrative growing - but it’s institutional, not retail; built on upstream capital flows, not hype cycles
> Epoch: current AI investment far below optimal - $500B committed vs. $25T modeled need by 2025; too little, not too much

> CB Insights (2025): AI-agent startups scaling revenue faster than any previous SaaS generation
> customer-service agents command steepest valuation multiples (≈127× avg) vs ≈52× overall
> most revenue still flows from enterprise-workflow & coding agents
> average age <5 years, with roughly half founded post-2022
> projected to reach $13B in annual revenue by end-2025, up from $5B in 2024
> Mercor ($4.5M per employee) & Cursor ($3.2M per employee) now match Big-Tech efficiency (Nvidia $3.6M, Meta $2.2M)

> other reports valued agentic AI market at $25B – $50B by 2030; McKinsey projects boldest + most recent revenue forecast yet
> BCG (2025): >50% consumers plan to use AI shopping assistants by year end; agent traffic ↑ 4,700 % YoY (Jul 2025 US retail)
> Salesforce: 43% retailers piloting, with 53% evaluating autonomous agents
> mainstream rollout also in action: OpenAI Instant Checkout, Perplexity “Buy with Pro”, Google AP2 Payments - enabling direct, in-chat purchases
> ~$100M+ funding into next-gen retail agents (TinyFish, Envive, Basis Theory etc.) focused on automation & payments infrastructure
> delegated commerce expected to stick, agents already buy & pay on existing rails