June Hits 3-Year High In Unicorn Births Across AI, Robotics And More

Twenty companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board last month — the highest number of companies to join in a single month since July 2022, when the venture funding downturn deepened, Crunchbase data shows.

The most highly valued to join last month was Thinking Machines Lab, which raised a $2 billion seed round at a $12 billion value.

The U.S. led unicorn creation in June with 11 companies, followed by China with four. Israel, India, UAE and Switzerland each added one, as did New Zealand, with its first unicorn company, per Crunchbase data.

Eight exits

Six companies from the board went public, including four from the U.S. The most notable of the bunch was neobank Chime, which went public at a value of $9.8 billion. Other U.S. unicorns that exited in June include Circle, a stablecoin service for payments, AI-driven precision medicine startup Caris Life Sciences, and behavioral health company Omada Health.

Two unicorn companies from China went public: voice AI company Unisound and vehicle sharing service Caocoa Chuxing.

Two unicorns were also acquired in June: SMB accounts payable service Melio, was purchased by New Zealand-based accounting software service Xero, and Movable Ink, which was acquired by private equity firm Symphony Technology Group.

June’s newly minted unicorns

Here are the 20 newly minted unicorns in June, by sector.

AI

• Mira Murati’s AI research lab Thinking Machines Lab raised a $2 billion seed round — the largest seed round on record — led by Andreessen Horowitz. The less than 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $12 billion.
• Decagon, a conversational AI for customer experience, raised a $131 million Series C led by Accel and Andreessen Horowitz. The 2-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.5 billion.
• Seekr deploys GenAI for companies and governments. It raised a $17.3 million first close in a round of funding, led by AMD Ventures and Danu Venture Group. The 4-year-old Reston, Virginia-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• Fireflies.ai, an AI meeting assistant, raised a secondary financing for its early team members, valuing the company at $1 billion. The 9-year-old San Francisco-based company is reportedly profitable and says it’s used by people at 75% of Fortune 500 companies.

Robotics

• Unitree Robotics, developer of humanoid and quadrupedal robotics for industrial and consumer use, raised a $97 million Series C led by China Mobile Innovation Industry Fund. The 8-year-old Hangzhou, China-based company was valued at $1.7 billion.
• Gecko Robotics, a robotic AI inspection service for defense, energy and manufacturing, raised a $125 million Series D led by Cox Enterprises. The 12-year-old Pittsburgh-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.
• Galaxy Bot, a developer of a humanoid robot for retail that manages inventory, replenishment and packaging, raised a $153 million funding led by Contemporary Amperex Technology. The 2-year-old Beijing-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Financial services

• Kalshi, a platform to trade on event outcomes, raised a $185 million Series C led by Paradigm. The 6-year-old New York-based company was valued at $2 billion.
• Juniper Square, a fund administration platform for private equity and venture, raised a $130 million Series D led by Ribbit Capital. The 12-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.1 billion.

Developer tools

• Linear, a product management tool for software teams, raised an $82 million Series C led by Accel. The 6-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.
• Coralogix, a real time data observability platform for software, raised a $115 million Series E led by NewView Capital. The 9-year-old Tel Aviv, Israel-based company was valued at $1.1 billion.

Web3

• Zama, a cryptography company building encryption solutions for blockchain, raised a $57 million Series B led by Blockchange Ventures and Pantera Capital. The 5-year-old Switzerland-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.
• The Open Platform, a blockchain infrastructure developer integrated into Telegram, raised a $29 million Series A led by Ribbit Capital. The 3-year-old Dubai-based company was valued at $1 billion.

Software

• Kylinsoft, an open source operating system to compete with Windows and MacOs in China, raised a $418 million corporate funding led by China National Software & Service Co. The 5-year-old Guangdong, China-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.

Healthcare

Sports

• Teamworks, a software service for high performance sports team development, raised a $235 million Series F led by existing investor Dragoneer Investment Group. The 15-year-old Durham, North Carolina-based company was valued at $1.2 billion.

Defense tech

• Military planning software company Onebrief raised a $24 million Series C extension led by Battery Ventures. The 6-year-old Honolulu-based company was valued at $1.1 billion. Its Series C funding 3 months earlier led by General Catalyst and Insight Partners valued the company at $650 million.

Network services

• Meter, a networking infrastructure company, raised a $170 million Series C led by General Catalyst. The 9-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.

E-commerce

• Jumbotail, a B2B e-commerce marketplace for food and groceries, raised a $120 million Series D led by SC Ventures. The 9-year-old Bangalore, India-based company was valued at $1 billion. Jumbotail also announced in June that it completed an acquisition of Solv, a B2B marketplace, incubated by SC Ventures.

Devices

• Halter, a smart collar technology to manage cattle grazing, raised a $99 million Series D led by Bond. The 9-year-old Auckland, New Zealand-based company was valued at $1 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