The unicorn factory is running again. Some 195 companies joined the Crunchbase Unicorn Board in the first half of 2026, already topping the 193 minted during all of last year and marking the busiest pace since the second half of 2022.
Robotics and AI neolabs led the way, with financial services, healthcare and biotech, AI infrastructure, deployment and devtools, defense, semiconductors and aerospace also contributing heavily, Crunchbase said.
The new cohort added roughly $440 billion in value, about 5% of the board’s total, and has raised $80 billion over time. The most valuable arrival is DeepSeek, the Chinese open-source model developer valued at $50 billion in its first external financing, followed by Seychelles-based crypto exchange OKX at $25 billion and OpenAI Deployment Co. at $14 billion.
Four companies joined as decacorns and another five above $5 billion, evidence that the market is still rewarding a wide range of valuations even as funding overall remains bifurcated between a select group of winners and everyone else.
The rebound matters for founders and investors alike. A healthy unicorn pipeline feeds later-stage liquidity, IPO filing cabinets and the private market’s appetite for fresh paper. Crunchbase notes that valuations for this cohort typically climb in the year after joining, and last year’s class saw nine members cross the $10 billion threshold.
Whether the pace holds into the second half depends on the same forces shaping every other corner of venture: AI infrastructure spending, public market sentiment and how long investors keep paying premium multiples for frontier companies.
