AI and Semiconductors Lead 29 New Unicorns in August

Twenty-nine companies became unicorns in August, adding approximately $63 billion in total value to the Crunchbase Unicorn Board. More than a third of the new entrants were under three years old.

The highest-valued newcomers were China's XPeng Robotics, valued at over $6.3 billion; San Jose-based photonics firm Lumilens, valued at $5.5 billion; and Palo Alto's River AI and San Francisco's Source Foundry, each valued at $5 billion. AI software was the most prominent category, spanning model training, assistants, and automation. Semiconductors followed as the second-largest sector with five new unicorns.

The United States was home to 16 of the month's new unicorns. China added four. South Korea, India, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Germany, and Turkey each contributed one. Nigeria and Indonesia also each added one new unicorn. According to Crunchbase data, nine companies exited the board in August: three via public offerings and six through acquisitions.

AI and Software

River AI, a Palo Alto-based platform for training and deploying custom AI models, announced $1.1 billion in funding led by General Catalyst and AMP PBC. The less-than-one-year-old company, founded by former xAI co-founder Igor Babuschkin, was valued around $5 billion.

San Francisco's Instinct, an AI assistant for personal tasks, raised a $250 million Series B led by Benchmark and Index Ventures, reaching a $2.5 billion valuation. Shanghai's Pragmatik Labs, a builder of agents for digital and physical environments, raised a $220 million seed round at a $2 billion valuation.

Other significant rounds included Wispr Flow's $280 million Series B for voice-writing tools, CodeRabbit's $143 million Series C for AI code review, and HappyRobot's $150 million Series C for deploying AI agents across enterprise systems. Turkey's HubX, a mobile app developer, raised a $50 million Series A at a $1.25 billion valuation.

Semiconductors and Hardware

The semiconductor sector saw five new unicorns. Lumilens raised a $700 million Series C at a $5.5 billion valuation to develop photonic interconnects for AI infrastructure. Source Foundry secured $400 million in funding, led by hedge fund Situational Awareness, valuing the semiconductor manufacturing tooling startup at $5 billion.

South Korea's DEEPX, developing edge AI processors, raised about $29 million in its Series D, valuing the company at approximately $2.2 billion. Shanghai's FangQing Technology, an AI chip startup, raised a Series A at a $1.5 billion valuation. Santa Clara's Velaura AI, which develops low-power silicon for data centers, raised a $110 million Series A to pass a $1 billion valuation.

Robotics and Other Sectors

In robotics, XPeng Robotics raised over $900 million at a valuation exceeding $6.3 billion for its general-purpose humanoid robot. Singapore's Sharpa, developing robots for real-world environments, raised about $669 million at a $3.3 billion valuation. Zurich's Gravis Robotics, which creates autonomous technology for construction machinery, raised a $200 million Series A at a $1 billion valuation.

Financial services added three unicorns: Bengaluru's Navi Technologies, Berlin's Moss, and Palo Alto's Rillet. Aerospace and defense saw two: Los Angeles-based Neros Technologies for military drones and Mountain View's Muon Space for satellite constellations.

Data center startups Volta and Zankore raised significant rounds, with Volta securing $300 million in equity and $5 billion in debt. Security firms Horizon3.ai and Obsidian Security also joined the board. China's Nova Fusion, a nuclear fusion company, raised about $179 million in seed funding at a $1.5 billion valuation to round out the list.

The funding details for the new unicorns are summarized in the table below.