AI boom keeps minting unicorns across healthcare and crypto

AI money is still minting billion-dollar startups, but the latest unicorn wave looks less like a clean sign of economic strength than a market still paying up for momentum. TechCrunch’s July 5 roundup, built from Crunchbase and PitchBook data, shows a 2026 class that is still dominated by AI, even as healthcare, cybersecurity, wealth management, inventory software and industrial manufacturing keep showing up in the mix.

A boom that keeps spreading beyond pure AI

The list is part of a broader 2026 run-up in private-market valuations, not a one-off burst. TechCrunch had already said in its January 2026 roundup that more than 100 new tech unicorns were minted in 2025, and the current pace suggests that momentum has carried straight into this year.

The headline story is still AI. MainFunc, which once went by Genspark, is valued at $2.6 billion after a $485 million Series B. EXA reached a $1.95 billion valuation after a $250 million Series C. Vi Labs, which builds an AI enterprise platform for health service organizations, hit $1.64 billion after a $145 million round. Even so, the list is not a pure AI parade. It also includes financial services, cybersecurity, inventory management and manufacturing, and TechCrunch says the broader 2026 crop includes a few crypto companies as well.

MainFunc and EXA show how fast AI capital still moves

MainFunc is the cleanest example of the AI frenzy. Founded in 2023, it has raised $645 million to date, with its latest $485 million Series B led by Lg Technology Ventures, SBI Investment and Emergency Equity Management. AWS is also among its backers. A company that young reaching a $2.6 billion valuation tells you how quickly investors are still assigning scale to AI infrastructure and workflow tools before the revenue base has been publicly tested.

EXA points in the same direction. Founded in 2021, the company has built a web engine for AI agents that search, crawl and research the web, and its $250 million Series C was led by Andreessen Horowitz. Nvidia and YC are among the other investors, and the company has raised $360 million in total. The valuation, $1.95 billion, reflects how tightly AI search and agent tools remain tied to the broader race to make models useful in real workflows.

Healthcare and financial services are riding the same capital wave

Vi Labs is one of the clearest reminders that the unicorn boom is not confined to pure software playbooks. Founded in 2021, the company serves health service organizations with an AI enterprise platform designed to help them find patients and run operations. Its latest round, led by RevelStroke Capital Partners and The Pritzker Organization, pushed the company to a $1.64 billion valuation, with total funding now around $275 million. General Atlantic and Square Peg Capital are also among its investors.

Farther brings another angle: wealth management. Founded in 2019, the platform reached a $1.25 billion valuation after a $150 million Series D led by General Atlantic. The company has raised $273 million to date, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Lightspeed and Khosla Ventures also in the cap table. That mix matters because it shows investors are still willing to put unicorn pricing on financial software that sits closer to client assets and advisory workflows than to the pure AI narrative.

Cybersecurity, inventory and manufacturing are still getting funded

Socket, founded in 2020, reached a $1 billion valuation after a $60 million Series C led by Thrive Capital. The company protects against malicious supply chain attacks, a reminder that some of the most durable software categories are still receiving outsized funding when they map onto a real security need. Its backers include Aaron Levie and Andreessen Horowitz, and it has raised $124 million in total.

Radar, founded in 2013, sits in a more operational lane. Its inventory management platform became a unicorn after a $170 million Series B led by Nimble Partners and Gideon Strategic Partners, bringing its total funding to roughly $250 million. Founders Fund and YC are among its other investors. SendCutSend rounds out the group with a more industrial profile: founded in 2018, it reached a $1 billion valuation after a $110 million Series A led by Paradigm and Sequoia, with about $123 million raised in all. It cuts custom industrial parts, which puts it far from the AI headline cycle and closer to the physical economy.

Why the valuation story needs a reality check

PitchBook’s Q1 2026 Global Unicorn Tracker provides the cautionary backdrop. More than 840 unicorns, over half the universe, had not raised a round in more than two years, and about a third of aggregate unicorn valuation had no independent verification. That is a blunt reminder that a big share of private-market value can be stale, paper-thin or simply untested by the market’s current standards.

PitchBook says its global unicorn dataset covers companies formed since 2016, and its tracker looks not only at deal activity and valuations but also at exits and a framework for scoring company quality beyond valuation. That matters now because the AI boom is still producing giant marks, while the evidence base for durable revenue, customer lock-in and operating scale remains uneven across the category.

TechCrunch says its 2026 unicorn roundup will be updated throughout the year as more VC-backed companies clear the $1 billion threshold. For now, the list reads less like a celebration than a stress test: AI is still doing the heavy lifting, but healthcare, finance, security and industrial software are riding the same capital wave, and PitchBook’s data suggests a meaningful slice of the unicorn stack may be carrying yesterday’s assumptions rather than today’s proof.