A total of 20 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in October, adding $44.5 billion in value. This was the highest valuation amount added to the unicorn board for a new cohort in the past three years.
The number of new monthly entrants has picked up in recent months. The top 20 companies on the board have also been reshuffled and we’ve seen a marked increase in new decacorn-valued companies.
Of the 20 companies that joined in October, 11 came from the U.S. China added three new unicorns and Sweden contributed two. Europe, the U.K., Germany and Ukraine each minted one new unicorn, as did India.
Among the new entrants, New York-based open model developer Reflection and Austin-based residential battery operator Base Power each raised billion-dollar rounds that valued them as unicorns for the first time.
The highest valued among the new unicorns were Reflection, which was valued at $8 billion, and San Francisco-based payments blockchain Tempo, valued at $5 billion.
Exits
A pair of companies from the unicorn board were acquired in October: Passwordless authentication company Stytch was acquired by Twilio, and Nexthink, an IT employee experience platform was acquired by Vista Equity Partners. In another October exit, data management tooling company dbt Labs merged with Fivetran in an all-stock deal.
Three companies also went public: Silicon Valley-based travel and expense management company Navan, Shanghai-based e-commerce software platform Jushuitan Network Technology, and Beijing-based silicon wafer production company Eswin Materials.
New unicorns
Here are October’s 20 newly minted unicorns across multiple sections. AI led with four companies, transportation with three, and healthcare and financial services followed, each with two companies.
AI
- Open source model developer Reflection.AI, founded by DeepMind engineers to compete against DeepSeek, raised a $2 billion Series B from Nvidia among other investors. The 1-year-old New York-based company was valued at $8 billion.
- Fireworks AI, which helps customers build AI applications, raised a $230 million Series C led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, Index Ventures and Evantic Capital. The 3-year-old Redwood City, California-based company was valued at $4 billion. It says it has 10,000 customers, up 10x from July 2024.
- AI agent automation platform n8n raised a $180 million Series C led by Accel. The 6-year-old Berlin-based company was valued at $2.5 billion.
- LangChain, a platform for deploying AI agents, raised a $125 million Series B led by IVP. The 3-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1.25 billion.
Transportation
- Zelos, a builder of autonomous robovans for B2B delivery, raised a $100 million Series B4 extension led by Ant Group. The 4-year-old Beijing-based company was valued at $1.6 billion.
- Contemporary Amperex Intelligence Technology raised its first external financing, a $281 million funding round. The 4-year-old company is a Shanghai-based subsidiary of car battery provider CATL and was valued at $1.4 billion in the deal. It’s a developer of an integrated chassis for battery and electric vehicle functions for driving.
- Self-driving trucking company Einride raised a $100 million funding led by existing investor EQT Ventures and quantum company IonQ. Einride builds electric big rigs, automated smaller delivery trucks for fixed routes, and a logistics platform. The 9-year-old Stockholm-based company was valued at $1 billion.
Healthcare and biotech
- HistoSonics, provider of a noninvasive therapy for tumors, raised a $250 million private equity round led by its new owners which include K5 Global, Bezos Expeditions and Wellington Management, as well as additional investors Founders Fund and Thiel Bio. The 16-year-old Minnesota-based company was valued at $3 billion.
- In women’s health, weight loss treatment provider SheMed raised a $50 million Series A. Investors were not disclosed. The 1-year-old London-based company was valued at $1 billion.
Financial services
Web3
- Blockchain payments provider Tempo, incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, raised a $500 million Series A led by Greenoaks and Thrive Capital. The less than 1-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $5 billion.
Energy
- Battery-powered home energy company Base Power raised a $1 billion Series C led by Addition. The 2-year-old Austin-based company was valued at $4 billion.
Aerospace
- Reusable rocket manufacturer Stoke Space raised a $510 million Series D led by US Innovative Technology Fund to scale manufacturing. The 6-year-old Kent, Washington-based company was valued at $2 billion.
Professional services
- Legora’s legal platform supports lawyers with research and legal drafting. The 2-year-old Stockholm-based legal tech company raised a $150 million Series C led by Bessemer Venture Partners. It was valued at $1.8 billion.
E-commerce
- ShopMy, which connects brands with creators for e-commerce, raised a $70 million funding led by Avenir. The 5-year-old Holden, Massachusetts-based company was valued at $1.5 billion. ShopMy says it has enabled $1 billion in sales across its platform.
Sales and marketing
- Vantaca, which provides a platform for community management for homeowners associations, raised a $300 million private equity round led by Cove Hill Partners. Vantaca says it serves more than 500 management companies. The 9-year-old Wilmington, North Carolina-based company was valued at $1.3 billion.
Defense tech
- Defense acquirer Govini raised a $150 million private equity round led by Bain Capital. The 14-year-old Arlington, Virginia-based company was valued at $1 billion.
Beauty
- Chinese skincare brand Chando raised a $104 million funding led by Harvest Capital and L’Oreal. The 24-year-old Shanghai-based company was valued at $1 billion.
Semiconductor
- Substrate, a company planning to build a compact lithography machine to support the manufacturing of chips in the U.S. market, raised a $100 million Series A from Founders Fund, General Catalyst and In-Q-Tel among others. The 4-year-old San Francisco-based company was valued at $1 billion.
Related Crunchbase unicorn lists:
Related reading:
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
Clarification: This story has changed since its original publication to correct an error in the Exits section.
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