How many total Native AI companies are there?

As of Nov 2026, there are 47,045 active companies in Native AI sector.

Which countries have the most Native AI companies?

United States (16,414) has the highest number of Native AI companies, followed by India (3,589) and United Kingdom (2,850).

How many Native AI companies are funded?

As of Nov 2026, 9,835 companies in this sector have received funding.

Which company has raised the most funding in Native AI sector?

As of Nov 2026, OpenAI has secured $180B in funding, making it the highest-funded company in the Native AI sector.

Which country has attracted the most investment in Native AI companies?

With $697B in total funding, United States has attracted the most investment among Native AI companies.

Who are the top investors in Native AI companies?

The top investors in Native AI companies by number of investments are Y Combinator, Europa and Andreessen Horowitz

How much venture capital has Native AI sector attracted?

In the last 10 years, venture capital firms have invested $676B in this sector.

How many unicorns has Native AI sector produced?

Globally, there are 284 unicorns in Native AI sector, to date.

Native AI - 2026 Market & Investments Trends

There are 49.8K companies in the Native AI sector across the world, with 9.84K funded companies having collectively raised $909B in venture capital money and private equity. Overall 3.91K of these are Series A+ funded and the sector has seen the creation of 284 Unicorns.

Native AI sector has seen 982 acquisitions and 241 IPOs.

This sector includes companies building core technology platforms, AI models, and applications that are fundamentally architected using artificial intelligence rather than traditional procedural code.

Native AI sector is also known as AI-First Technology or Core Artificial Intelligence Systems.

Companies included in Native AI sector

It includes LLM creators, foundational neural network developers, native multi-modal model architectures, and software applications completely dependent on AI inference to function.

Companies excluded in Native AI sector

It excludes legacy IT infrastructure, traditional software applications with basic algorithmic add-ons, and purely non-digital business models.

Key Metrics

Total Companies

49.8K

Top Companies

OpenAI, Perplexity & more

Total Funding

Funded Companies

Series A+ Companies

Series C+ Companies

Unicorns Created

IPOs

Acquisitions

Also known as

AI-First Technology or Core Artificial Intelligence Systems

View complete details of this sector

There are more than 49.8K companies in Native AI. OpenAI is the top Native AI company globally, ranked using Tracxn Score (what's this?).

Here are 5 of the top Native AI companies globally:

Company	Description	Location	Founded	Current Stage	Private Funding Raised
OpenAI	Artificial intelligence research and development platform offering advanced language models	San Francisco (United States)	2015	Series F	$180B
Perplexity	AI-powered search and answer generation	San Francisco (United States)	2022	Series E	$1.72B
Meitu	Developer of image, video, and design creation software and applications	Xiamen (China)	2008	Public	$525M
ElevenLabs	AI platform for speech, voice cloning, music, and AI agents	New York City (United States)	2022	Series D	$822M
Palantir	Platform that provides data analysis and management solutions	Denver (United States)	2003	Public	$2.46B

Get a longer list of companies

Companies founded year-on-year in the Native AI sector

4,567 new startups have been founded so far in 2026 in the Native AI sector. 6,661 Native AI startups were founded in 2025 - this is the most number of startups founded in any year in the last 10 years.

Total Number of Companies

Year	No. of companies
2026	4,567
2025	6,661
2024	5,372
2023	5,316
2022	2,570
2021	2,186
2020	2,122
2019	1,843
2018	1,581
2017	1,512

Companies founded across countries in the Native AI sector

United States has 16,414 Native AI startups, the most by any country, followed by India which has 3,589 startups and United Kingdom which has 2,850.

Total Number of Companies

Country	No. of companies
United States	16,414
India	3,589
United Kingdom	2,850
China	2,326
Germany	1,502
Canada	1,409
France	917
Singapore	764
Israel	761
Australia	742

Stage-wise distribution of the Native AI sector

Out of the total 49,820 Native AI companies, 9,835 have secured funding. Among them, 3,906 have reached Series A or higher, and 2,413 to Series B or beyond.

Founded - 49,820

Funded - 9,835

Series A+ - 3,906

Series B+ - 2,413

Series C+ - 1,760

Company Stage	No. of companies
Founded	49,820
Funded	9,835
Series A+	3,906
Series B+	2,413
Series C+	1,760

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49.8K+ Total Companies
$909B+ Total Funding
9.8K+ Funded Companies
240+ IPOs
980+ Acquisitions
60+ Reports

Total funding year-on-year in the Native AI sector

The Native AI sector saw a total funding of more than $895B in the last 10 years. The most amount of funding has been in 2026 at more than $435B till date.

Total Funding

Year	Total Funding
2026	$435B
2025	$186B
2024	$90.6B
2023	$41.2B
2022	$30.1B
2021	$46.2B
2020	$21.9B
2019	$17.1B
2018	$19.4B
2017	$7.69B

Total funding across countries in the Native AI sector

In the last 10 years, Native AI startups in United States have recieved the highest funding among all countries - $697B. China follows with $59.3B and United Kingdom with $36.2B.

Total Funding

Country	Total Funding
United States	$697B
China	$59.3B
United Kingdom	$36.2B
Australia	$14.9B
Singapore	$14B
Canada	$13.3B
France	$12.3B
Germany	$9.53B
Israel	$8.96B
India	$6.79B

Total funding amount raised by stage in the Native AI sector

Over the last 10 years, the Native AI sector have seen $28.6B into Seed Stage funding rounds, $161B into Early Stage funding rounds and $592B go into Late Stage funding rounds.

Funding Stage	Total Funding
Late Stage	$592B
Early Stage	$161B
Debt	$71.9B
Seed Stage	$28.6B
Post IPO	$27.9B
Other-Equity	$3.89B
PE	$1.97B
Grant	$1.71B
ICO	$387M

Recent Funding Rounds in Native AI

In the year 2026, till October 2026, Native AI companies have raised $386B in equity funding across 1.66K rounds. In the same period last year (i.e. till October 2025), Native AI companies had raised $144B across 1.97K rounds. So, 2026 has seen a 167.84% rise in funding in Native AI companies as compared to 2025.

Here are some recent, important funding rounds in Native AI:

Company	Round Raised	Amount Raised	Funding Date	Investors
TypeSafe	Series A	8157	Oct 09, 2026	Andreessen Horowitz
Gallatin	Series A	3858	Oct 08, 2026	8VC and 1 more
Arena	Series B	2337	Oct 08, 2026	Lightspeed Venture Partners and 10 more
Mecka	Series B	7972	Oct 08, 2026	Sequoia Capital and 10 more
Vesta	Series B	8176	Oct 08, 2026	Conversion Capital and 4 more

See a more detailed list of funding rounds

Y Combinator is the top investor in Native AI companies based on number of companies invested.

Here are some top investors in Native AI:

Investor	Location	Top Portfolio Companies
Y Combinator	Mountain View (United States)	OpenAI, Replit, Scale AI and PhotoRoom
Europa	Belgium	Nvidia, OpenEvidence, Snyk and ELSA Speak
Andreessen Horowitz	New York City (United States)	OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Waymo and OpenEvidence
Sequoia Capital	Menlo Park (United States)	OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Anthropic and Nvidia
Techstars	New York City (United States)	DataRobot, Twelve Labs, Seldon and Ravelin Technology

See a more detailed list of investors

In the year 2026, till October 2026, 194 acquisitions happened in Native AI sector. Last year, in 2025, a total of 197 acquisitions happened in Native AI sector.

Here are some recent, important acquisitions in Native AI:

Company	Acquisition Type	Acquisition Date	Acquirers
boost.ai	Business Acquisition	Oct 07, 2026	Automation Anywhere
Senso	Business Acquisition	Oct 06, 2026	Zeta Global
Inferize	Business Acquisition	Oct 01, 2026	Nebius
Vigil	Business Acquisition	Oct 01, 2026	Xopero
Listen Labs	Business Acquisition	Sep 29, 2026	Salesforce

See a more detailed list of acquisitions

Acquisition trends in Native AI

Here are the acquisition trends in Native AI:

Total Number of Acquisitions

Year	No. of companies
2026	194
2025	197
2024	117
2023	79
2022	94
2021	86
2020	48
2019	46
2018	39
2017	27

In the year 2026, till September 2026, 25 IPOs happened in Native AI sector.

Here are some recent, important IPOs in Native AI:

Company	IPO Date	Exchange Symbol
Camsense	Sep 30, 2026	Hong Kong Exchanges (HKG)
Enflame	Sep 11, 2026	Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE)
Mech-Mind	Sep 01, 2026	Hong Kong Exchanges (HKG)
Aitenders	Aug 10, 2026	Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE)
Beijing Yikong Zhijia Technology	Jul 08, 2026	Hong Kong Exchanges (HKG)

See a more detailed list of IPOs

Companies founded by alumni from top colleges in the Native AI sector

Most number of Native AI startups have been founded by alumni from Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California (Berkeley).

College	No. of companies
Stanford University	661
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	396
University of California (Berkeley)	380
Harvard University	334
Carnegie Mellon University	263
IIT Delhi	225
University of Cambridge	225
University of Oxford	194
University of California (Los Angeles)	193
Tel Aviv University	191

Total funding in companies founded by alumni from top colleges in the the Native AI sector

In the last 10 years, Harvard University graduates' Native AI companies have raised the most funding among top colleges. Stanford University alumni are second, and University of Toronto alumni are third.

College	Total Funding
Harvard University	$400B
Stanford University	$365B
University of Toronto	$259B
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	$242B
Carnegie Mellon University	$198B
New York University	$189B
Columbia University	$162B
Stanford Business School	$140B
Princeton University	$138B
University of California (Berkeley)	$20.1B