Elon Musk’s only expert witness at the OpenAI trial fears an AGI arms race
Stuart Russell is a long-time AI researcher who thinks governments need to restrain frontier labs.
Crunchbase AI News·
A total of 28 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in April, with robotics startups and frontier labs leading by number of entrants for the second consecutive month.
Read full articleStuart Russell is a long-time AI researcher who thinks governments need to restrain frontier labs.
Artificial intelligence unicorns are multiplying fast, and not all of them deserve the attention they get. This guide covers the most valuable private AI companies of 2026, what they actually build, who is paying for it, and what separates genuine commercial value from inflated numbers.
Since 2024, an estimated 207 AI-focused companies have joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board. That’s roughly half of all companies that first hit valuations of $1 billion or more during this period.
A total of 37 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in March, the highest monthly count in close to four years, Crunchbase data shows. The robotics sector led unicorn creation last month, with six new billion-dollar startups.
A total of 47 seed- and early stage companies joined the unicorn ranks in the first quarter of this year, per Crunchbase data. Barring a major slowdown, that puts 2026 on track to deliver the largest cohort of young unicorns to date.