By the end of September, 311 companies had joined Crunchbase's Unicorn Board in 2026. By mid-October the list had passed 320, putting the year on track to finish behind only 2021.

Every company on that list closed a funding round, usually with a handful of investors, at a price that put it at $1 billion or more. What those companies are worth now is another matter. The last time unicorns showed up this quickly, most of them ended up worth less.

How a startup gets on the list

Crunchbase adds a company the moment a funding round values it at $1 billion or more. By its own methodology, it doesn't adjust those numbers later for investor writedowns. Once a company is on the board, it keeps its last priced valuation until it raises again or exits.

Headline valuations also leave out deal terms. Researchers at Stanford and the University of British Columbia found that once investor protections such as guaranteed payouts are priced in, nearly half of unicorns were overvalued by at least 48%. Those terms are rarely disclosed.

Several of September's 38 new unicorns came with little public detail. Prediction market OG reached a $5 billion valuation through a strategic partnership with Robinhood, with no investment amount disclosed. AfterQuery's $3.2 billion valuation was reported without a round size or lead investor. Alzheon's investors weren't named. Those valuations may hold up, but nobody outside the deals can check them.

What happened to the 2021 class

By late 2023, nearly 90% of 2021's unicorns were valued lower in private trades, according to Forge Global, and about a third had dropped below $1 billion. PitchBook says startups that last raised in 2021 are now worth 68% less on average, and more than 220 former unicorns have lost the title.

Carta found that of 616 U.S. companies that became unicorns by the end of 2021, 374 hadn't raised again by the start of 2025. Without a new round, their last price stays on the books.

PitchBook now estimates that more than a quarter of today's unicorns are likely worth less than $1 billion, even though their investors still mark them above it. In its first-quarter tracker, it found that a third of all unicorn value has no independent verification.

Where AI fits in

AI accounts for a large share of this year's class, though the size depends on who's counting. Counting only companies whose core product is AI, an August analysis by Inc. put pure AI at about a quarter of 2026's new unicorns, with robotics adding another 15%. CB Insights uses a broader definition that includes chip, data center and training data companies, and by its count AI made up 61% of new unicorns last year.

Some of the steepest valuation jumps are in AI. Training data supplier AfterQuery's valuation rose more than tenfold in five months. Micro1, a rival, is valued at eight times what it was a year ago. Beijing's Naive AI became a unicorn before releasing a public model. In the first half, 19 new unicorns raised again within about six months and at least doubled their valuation.

Some of these companies are growing revenue quickly, and a fast rise doesn't on its own mean a valuation is wrong. But a price that doubled in six months hasn't been through a downturn. Several of these companies also sell to the same few AI labs, so a pullback there would hit them together.

For buyers

For enterprise buyers, the count matters less than what sits behind each entry. A $1 billion valuation shows a startup can raise money. It says little about whether the company can support a multi-year contract.

Most of the 2021 class didn't shut down. Many stopped raising, cut staff or sold at a discount, and some customers lost products they depended on. Before signing with a 2026 unicorn, ask how much cash it has, how concentrated its revenue is, and what happens to your data and contract if it's acquired.

Anthropic's IPO, expected in November, will show how public investors price an AI company that private investors valued at $965 billion earlier this year.