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.

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.

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

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists:

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.

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