Data, Health, Security And Defense Startups Among The New Unicorns In April

Seven companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in April — a defense tech startup and two each in data, healthcare and security.

For at least five of the companies, the AI wave was a significant driver for increased momentum. Of the seven new unicorns, six are in software, while the one defense tech company is in hardware and software. The two healthcare startups are consumer-facing, while the rest are enterprise or government focused.

Six of last month’s new unicorns are U.S.-based, while one is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

Up and down rounds

Beyond the new unicorns, a further 38 companies already on the Unicorn Board raised funding in April. That included notable up rounds as well as down rounds.

On the up round side, AI lab Safe Superintelligence boosted its valuation by a staggering 540% in the space of just seven months to $32 billion — an all-time record for a valuation increase in that amount of time.

Security company Chainguard also increased its valuation significantly — to $3.5 billion, a 213% increase in the space of nine months.

France-based accounting fintech Pennylane and New York-based AI video startup Runway both doubled their valuations in less than two years. And Flow, WeWork founder Adam Neumann’s new residential real estate company, was valued at $2.5 billion, up 150% in less than three years thanks to a funding led by existing investor Andreessen Horowitz.

Several startups also raised significant down rounds. They include fintech Plaid, valued at $6.1 billion in its new funding — down 54% from its last valuation. Self-driving Nuro raised funding at a $6 billion valuation, a 30% haircut from its previous valuation.

Mexico-based online used car resale platform Kavak raised funding at a 75% discount and is now valued at $2.2 billion. And Spain’s Jobs&Talent, which provides online staffing for gig-based work, raised new funding at a $1.5 billion valuation, a 38% discount.

For all the unicorns that raised down rounds last month, their previous known valuations were from the 2021 peak market.

Unicorn tally

The unicorn board now counts 1,585 companies that have raised $1 trillion in total funding and have $5.9 trillion in collective value. A quarter of the unicorn companies on the board have raised funding since the beginning of 2024.

April’s minted unicorns

Here are the seven newly minted April unicorns, by sector.

Data platform

Supabase, an open-source relational database, raised a $200 million Series D led by Accel. The 5-year-old San Francisco-based company with 2 million developers was valued at $2 billion.
Redpanda Data, a data platform to connect, secure and audit data streams for agentic AI, raised a $100 million Series D led by Google Ventures. The 6-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Healthcare

Chapter, a medicare platform for seniors navigating health coverage, raised a $75 million Series D led by Stripes. The 5-year-old New York-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
Nourish, a telehealth service for nutrition counseling for those with chronic disease, raised a $70 million Series B led by J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners. The 4-year-old, New York-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Privacy and security

Tailscale, a network VPN service to connect devices in a secure manner for companies, raised a $160 million Series C led by Accel, which also led its Series A. The 6-year-old Toronto, Ontario-based company was valued at $1.5 billion and is seeing expanded needs for connecting workloads with AI.
Cyberhaven, a security company preventing data loss, raised a $100 million Series D led by StepStone Group. The 10-year-old Palo Alto, California-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Defense tech

Chaos, a defense tech company that builds detection and monitoring technology for unmanned aerial systems, missiles and aircraft, raised a $275 million Series C led by New Enterprise Associates. The 3-year-old Los Angeles-based company was valued at $2 billion.

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists:

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