Five companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in October 2024, across sectors spanning AI, energy, robotics, fintech and professional services. These five added over $7 billion in value to the board, which now hosts more than 1,550 companies collectively valued at $5.3 trillion.

Four of the new unicorns are from the Bay Area, while the other is headquartered in London but operates in Africa.

In addition, five companies, last valued at $12.5 billion jointly, exited the board in October. These five exited unicorns were higher in value than the total value added from the newly minted unicorns.

However, the overall value of the board grew as OpenAI raised the largest round this year, $6.6 billion, boosting its value from $80 billion in February to $157 billion in its most recent funding. And AI companies Sierra and Lightmatter raised funding within a year of prior fundings at significant markups from those earlier fundings.

So far this year, 32 companies have exited the board, with half going public and half being acquired. That is already above the totals in 2023, when 25 companies exited, including 12 acquired and 13 that listed.

Exits in transportation and healthcare

Three companies from China went public last month, including two in autonomous driving. Horizon Robotics went public on the Hong Kong stock exchange, raising $696 million, and WeRide raised $440.5 million in a Nasdaq listing. China-based short-distance courier provider BingEx, branded as FlashEX, also went public on Nasdaq, raising $66 million.

Meanwhile, two U.S.-based healthcare companies were acquired last month. Both focus on managing in-home ongoing care. Carebridge, a Nashville, Tennessee-based home health provider for medicare and medicaid patients, was acquired for $2.7 billion by Elevance Health, a public health company based in Indiana. And Boston-based Biofourmis, a biotech company that monitors patients at home, merged with CopilotIQ, a connected care company for those with chronic conditions.

October’s minted unicorns

Here are all of the newly minted October unicorns, by sector.

AI

• San Francisco-based AI coding platform Poolside raised a $500 million Series B led by Bain Capital Ventures. The 1-year old company was valued at $3 billion.

Energy

• Nuclear fusion company Pacific Fusion, based in Fremont, California, raised a whopping $900 million Series A led by General Catalyst. The 1-year old company did not disclose its valuation, but it’s surely well into unicorn territory.

Professional services

• San Francisco-based EvenUp, an AI legal tech company for personal injury law firms, raised a $135 million Series D led by Bain Capital Ventures. The 5-year old company was valued at $1 billion.

Fintech

• Business payment platform Moniepoint raised a $110 million Series C led by Africa-focused private equity fund DPI. Moniepoint is processing $17 billion monthly for its customers primarily in Nigeria, with plans to expand across Africa. The 9-year old London-headquartered company was valued at $1 billion.

Robotics

• San Francisco-based Nimble Robotics, an AI robotics for e-commerce picking and packing, raised a $106 million Series C led by private investment firm Cedar Pine and previous investor FedEx. The 7-year old company was valued at $1 billion.

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists

• The Crunchbase Private Unicorn Company List (1,554)

• New unicorns in 2024 (94)
• New unicorns in 2023 (99)
• Unicorns in the U.S. (770)
• Unicorns in Asia (491)
• European unicorns (203)
• Unicorns from LatAm (36)
• Emerging unicorn leaderboard (451)
• Exited unicorns (479)

Related reading:

• OpenAI Raises $6.6B At $157B Valuation
• AI-Coding Startup Poolside Raises Massive $500M Series B
• AI Legal Tech Startup EvenUp Raises $135M To Hit Unicorn Status

The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are added to the Unicorn Board as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round.

The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter.

Funding to unicorn companies includes all private financings to companies that are tagged as unicorns, as well as those that have since graduated to The Exited Unicorn Board.

Exits analyzed here only include the first time a company exits.

Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price.

Illustration: Dom Guzman