These 10 AI startups have achieved billion-dollar valuations with small teams
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has enabled startups to do more with less, leading some founders to build extremely lean teams.
"We're going to see 10-person companies with billion-dollar valuations soon," said Sam Altman , CEO of OpenAI, in February 2024. "In my group chat with my tech CEO friends, there's a betting pool for the first year there will be a one-person billion-dollar company. Without AI, that would have been unthinkable. And now it's happening."
Some of the largest AI companies have achieved success with tiny teams. For example, Anysphere , the maker of the coding copilot Cursor, grew from €900,000 ($1 million) in annual recurring revenue (ARR) to €90 million ($100 million) in less than a year with fewer than 50 employees, according to the private market research platform Sacra.
Companies typically hire more employees as their business grows. However, small tech teams are not entirely unknown. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for the equivalent of around €900 million ($1 billion), when the photo-sharing app had only 13 employees. However, small tech teams are extremely unusual for unicorns.
Today, the venture ecosystem is powering a new generation of multi-billion dollar companies that have become so efficient through AI that they only need a handful of employees.
Business Insider compiled a list of the world's highest-valued AI startups with teams of 50 or fewer employees, based on data from Pitchbook. Pitchbook stated that its data only includes VC-backed companies with known headcounts and may not represent the most up-to-date information. Business Insider independently contacted the listed companies and compared Pitchbook's data with the headcounts on the startups' LinkedIn pages.
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0G Labs
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Magic
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Sakana AI
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Skild AI
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Black Forest Labs
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Accutar Biotech
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Andalusia Labs
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OpenEvidence
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