A total of 195 companies joined the Crunchbase Unicorn Board in the first half of 2026, already surpassing the 193 unicorns minted for all of 2025. These new unicorns added roughly $440 billion in aggregate value and have raised $80 billion over time. DeepSeek, the China-based open-source model developer, is the most valuable new unicorn at $50 billion in its first external financing, followed by Seychelles-based crypto exchange OKX at $25 billion and OpenAI Deployment Co. at $14 billion.
Four of H1's new unicorns reached decacorn status ($10B+), with another five valued above $5 billion. Momentum has accelerated in the AI, robotics, and semiconductors sectors, with 19 of the new cohort executing fast follow-ons—doubling valuations in six months or less. Etched, a semiconductor startup, vaulted from $5 billion to $10 billion in six months; Hadrian (defense tech) jumped from $1.6B to $7.9B; and Valar Atomics (nuclear energy for AI) scaled from $2B to $6B in four months.
The U.S. leads with 110 new unicorns (56%), while China surged to 38—up from just 10 in 2025. The H1 wave reflects massive venture appetite for AI infrastructure, chip startups, and defense innovation, with capital flowing to companies addressing core bottlenecks in the AI cycle.