Uncover the future of business with Forbes' highly anticipated annual ranking of companies poised to hit billion-dollar valuations! For over a decade, this list has boasted a superb track record, with more than half of its featured companies already achieving unicorn status.
This year, Senior Editor Amy Feldman sits with Assistant Managing Editor Katharine Schwab to discuss the vast majority of selected startups that are leveraging artificial intelligence to automate tasks across diverse sectors, from healthcare to design. Discover the rigorous methodology behind these predictions, involving insights from hundreds of VC firms and a deep dive into financial data, even for very early-stage companies.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2025/08/12/next-billion-dollar-startups-2025/
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0:00 - Introduction: The Next Billion-Dollar Startups List 1:11 - Our Methodology: How We Find Future Unicorns 2:05 - This Year's Big Theme: The AI Takeover 2:56 - The 'Insane' Valuations of AI Startups 4:18 - Success Stories: A Look at Our AI Alumni 5:07 - A Concerning Trend: The Rise of Pre-Revenue Startups 5:51 - Spotlight on Non-AI: Longevity Drugs for Dogs 6:52 - What This List Says About the Startup Ecosystem 7:36 - Our Biggest Winner: The $40 Billion Success Story
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00:00Hi, I'm Katherine Schwab, an Assistant Managing Editor here at Forbes covering technology.
00:08Today, I'm so excited that we have launched our next billion-dollar startups list. It's
00:14our annual ranking of 25 companies we think most likely to hit a billion-dollar valuation
00:19in the future. I'm so excited to be here with Amy Feldman, a senior editor on the team here
00:25with me. We worked on this list together. Amy, tell me more about the next billion-dollar
00:32startups list. How do we choose these companies, and how good are we at predicting future unicorns?
00:39I am delighted to be here. This is the 11th year that we have done this list. We started
00:45in 2016, and we have had a superb track record so far. We have more than half of the companies
00:52are already unicorns. I think it is 140 at last count out of 250 of them. In addition
01:00to that, we've had a number that have been acquired or have gone public at somewhat below
01:05a billion. We've only had a few blowups, so we are quite happy with the track record,
01:10and knock wood, it will continue this year.
01:12I'm pretty proud of that, too, especially given how many startups fail. How do we choose
01:19these companies to feature? We and our partners at TrueBridge Capital, which also works with
01:25us on the Midas list, reach out to companies. They reach out to a few hundred VC firms to
01:30get the best of the best of their portfolios, and we reach out on our own to companies. We reach
01:36out through social. We get them to send us all kinds of financial information in order
01:41to do the first cut.
01:43Okay, so then once we've got that first cut, then we go out to all those companies, and they
01:49actually have to share their financial information with us, which they don't always like to do,
01:53but we push them, too, because we're really looking for companies that have a really promising
01:59track record, even if they're very, very early stage. The percentage of companies that become
02:06unicorns really bears out the methodology on this list, I think.
02:10Yes, I think so, and I think we try to look not only at the valuations themselves, but at
02:17the growth metrics at companies that are likely to hit that valuation and hopefully stay there.
02:22Yeah, so AI is a huge part of the list this year. Why is that, Amy? Why is AI such a big
02:33part of the list this year? Oh, my God. AI has just eaten this list this year. As you know,
02:40we have 20 out of 25 of the companies are somehow AI-related. I mean, this doesn't mean that they're
02:46foundational models. It means that they're using AI in all types of things. So some of them are using
02:51AI for healthcare applications. Some of them are using AI for military applications. It's really that
02:56AI has just permeated Silicon Valley and our entire economy so much that it's become inescapable.
03:04Yeah, so are there specific companies you think are particularly interesting within the kind of AI
03:12cohort? Well, I think it's interesting that one of our AI companies on the list was already reported
03:18today before the list came out to be raising at a billion dollar valuation. And, you know, we have
03:28them on the list this year. That's kind of an incredibly fast rise. Yeah. I think reflective
03:34of what's going on. Yeah. I mean, the valuations we're seeing just broadly in the tech sector right
03:40now are just totally insane. So we were very concerned in putting this together that, yeah,
03:45these companies are raising money so fast because investors see so much opportunity to automate
03:53mostly basic tasks. Like a lot of the AI companies we're looking at here are really focused on specific
03:58sectors. Like there's one for architects to help them design buildings or, you know, financial analysts
04:07to help them create reports much faster instead of having to do that manually. So I think we're starting
04:14to see the AI and entrepreneurs using AI to start to automate like really specific tasks. And it'll be really
04:24interesting to see how these companies grow from here.
04:27Yeah. And I think it's interesting if you if you look at the AI alumni, we've sort of seen the same thing where
04:33like Harvey, which does legal AI and was on the list a couple of years ago, is now worth $5 billion. And Clay, which was
04:40also on the list, I believe just last year, is now worth $3 billion. So we're just seeing this, you know, really eye popping level of growth in valuations.
04:50Though, the revenue numbers are not particularly high, because it's so I mean, a lot of these companies are still very early stage. But like, there certainly is a lot of hype around what this technology could do.
05:02Correct. And I have to say, it makes me a little nervous when I look at this list. This is the first year where we've had quite a number of companies that had we look at previous year's revenue. So for this year, it's 2024 revenue. And there are a number of companies on the list that have zero 2024 revenue, and a few others that have 2024 revenue below a million. And for this list, that's highly unusual, but it's also indicative of what's happening in AI.
05:28Yeah. So what about non AI startups? Are there any, you think worth highlighting?
05:32There's a few, I mean, my favorite one is the one that I profiled in the magazine, which is loyal, which is making drugs to help dogs age slower their longevity drugs for dogs. And as someone with a dog who I hope would age slower, I just think it's a fabulous idea.
05:50How close are they to actually making that happen?
05:54They're in discussions with the FDA right now, they've been going through clinical trials. And they hope that they can have a drug on the market in 2026.
06:02Okay, so it's right around the corner, right around the corner, you know, assuming things go well. Yes, it would be a beef flavored pill.
06:08Yeah. What do you think the list this year tells us about the health of the startup ecosystem?
06:20I mean, I think what's interesting is it gets back to what we were talking about with AI, I think is showing us this bifurcation of the market where previously we had, you know, consumer products companies like Quince on the list.
06:33This year, we have no consumer products companies, we have, you know, an overabundance of AI companies. And that's really what is getting the funding right now. You're not seeing funding going to consumer companies, you're not seeing funding going to biotech companies, you're seeing funding going to AI companies.
06:50Yeah.
06:51Are there any big winners from the last few years of the list?
06:55Well, I think the biggest winner right now is Figma, which was on the list in 2019. And I believe when I looked at it is now worth 40 billion after its IPO. So that is, you know, kind of a crazy rise.
07:12Yeah, that I can imagine, you know, you think about the difference between longevity drugs for dogs versus like software, which can obviously scale much faster. We're really seeing, you know, just absolute tons of money. And it's exciting to see Figma have such a big exit, especially when there have been so few IPOs.
07:34It really is. I mean, it's, you know, hopefully indicative of the IPO market coming back a little bit.
07:40Yeah. And also, you know, it makes us feel good because we put them on the, on this list many, many years ago when they were very small and little and look at them now, all grown up.
07:52Great. Well, thanks so much for joining me, Amy, and congrats on the launch of the list.
07:56Thanks for having me and always a pleasure to do this.
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