This new unicorn count took place in a funding environment where the most active unicorn investor, Tiger Global, is looking to sell its stakes in private companies, and investors continue to downgrade unicorn portfolio values.

The 10 companies hailed across nine different industries, and AI topped the list with two companies. Other sectors with a single new unicorn ranged from energy, biotech, robotics, enterprise SaaS and transportation among others.

Five of the new unicorns are U.S.-based and two are from China. Canada, Indonesia and Japan each counted one new unicorn this past month.

Around $5 billion of the $22 billion in global venture funding raised in May 2023 went to unicorn companies.  That’s less than half of the $11 billion that unicorns raised in May 2022. The largest funding last month went to fast-fashion e-commerce platform Shein, which raised $2 billion in a single round at a reduced valuation of $66 billion.

Here are the new unicorns:

AI

• Toronto-based Cohere, a generative AI large language model developer for enterprises, raised $270 million in its Series C funding. The funding was led by Inovia Capital  valuing the 4-year-old company at $2.2 billion. 
• Generative video AI company Runway, based out of New York, raised a $100 million Series D led by Google. The funding valued the 5-year-old company at $1.5 billion.

Energy

• China-based Ryefield Energy, a battery energy storage company, raised $140 million led by Sparkedge Capital. The company was valued at $1.4 billion.

Agtech

• Indonesia-based eFishery, developer of an IoT feeding device for shrimp and fish, and an e-commerce platform for aquafarmers, raised a $108 million Series D led by Abu Dhabi PE fund G42 Expansion Fund. The company was valued at $1.3 billion.

Cleantech

• Massachusetts-based Gradiant helps enterprises dependent on water reduce and treat wastewater. It raised a $225 million Series D led by BoltRock Holdings and Centaurus Capital in a round which valued the company at $1 billion.

Enterprise SaaS

• Restaurant management software company Restaurant365 based in Irvine, California, raised a $135 million round which valued the company at $1 billion. The funding was led by private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and L Catterton.

Proptech

• Proptech company Avenue One provides a platform of services from brokers, contractors and property managers for buyers of rental properties. The company based in New York raised $100 million led by WestCap valuing the company at $1 billion.

Transportation

• Tokyo-based GO, the leading ride hailing app in Japan, raised a $72 million Series D led by Goldman Sachs which valued the company at $1 billion. The company is also developing software to monitor safe driving practices.

Robotics

• Humanoid robot developer Zhiyuan Robotics based in Shanghai, raised its third funding led by Baidu Capital, valuing the company at $1 billion. The amount raised was not disclosed.

Biotech

• VectorBuilder, a gene delivery technology company headquartered in Chicago, raised a funding which valued the company at $1 billion.

Unicorn queries

• Unicorn leaderboard (1,460)
• Unicorns in the U.S. (721)
• Unicorns in Asia (458)
• European unicorns (197)
• Emerging unicorn leaderboard (376)
• Exited unicorns (426)

Methodology

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.

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.

Correction: The funding round for Cohere was updated to $270 million and its valuation to $2.2 billion based on an updated funding announcement.

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The popular fast-fashion startup based in China has reportedly raised $2 billion at two-thirds of its valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The company rose through The Crunchbase Unicorn Board ranks during the pandemic, receiving a valuation of $100 billion and ranking just under the likes of TikTok owner ByteDance and SpaceX. But this new round of funding cut its valuation down to $66 billion. No big deal — it’s still the fourth-highest-valued startup in the world. 

Shein quickly won the hearts of American consumers as e-commerce and delivery exploded during work-from-home orders, and investors took note — in 2021, funding rose to more than $27 billion, around three times higher than the year before. 

The company has remained relatively quiet as rumors swirled that the e-commerce giant had a plan to raise money and, later on, go public. But while Shein contemplates its lofty plans, the company faces numerous obstacles to going public, including weaving through complex international regulations and declining activity in e-commerce.

E-commerce loses its luster

Funding toward e-commerce has seen a slow but steady rise in the last 10 years. 

That all changed in 2021, when the tech industry pinpointed e-commerce as a long-lasting consumer behavior much like working from home was. Funding jumped around 3x higher than 2020, and then immediately crashed to normal levels in 2022. Several big tech giants like Amazon and Meta were quick to build up their e-commerce services, only to lay off thousands of workers when those strategies didn’t play out. 

It’s unclear if Shein will face a similar, less drastic fate. The company reportedly garnered $23 billion in revenue in 2022, on par with other fast-fashion retailers like H&M and fashion conglomerate Inditex, which owns popular brands like Zara. But the e-commerce model isn’t as popular as it once was, and global regulations around environmental and sustainability laws could dwindle its popularity even further.

Stricter environmental regulations

Shein’s clothing is known for being extremely cheap — women’s shirts sell for as little as $2. The company has had to dodge questions over forced labor and environmental impacts of its production line. 

Despite telling U.S. congressional members Shein worked with third-party firms to audit its supply chain of forced labor, the company used cotton from Xinjiang (which has been cited for using forced labor) in at least two instances. In some instances, workers spent 18-hour days in the factories, or were given one day off a month, which violates China’s labor laws. 

The European Union is also setting strict sustainability standards on imports, taxing companies more based on how high their carbon footprint is. This could drive up the price of Shein-made items, or require the company to make changes to its supply chain in order to lower its environmental impact. 

If Shein does go through with its IPO, it has the potential to disrupt the $1.53 trillion apparel industry, but changing headwinds could ruin its course.

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Shein raised money at a third of its previous valuation. We have updated the story to reflect the accurate number.

Related Crunchbase Pro queries:

• Global Funding Toward E-Commerce Startups

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Of the five companies, three are U.S.-based. The U.K. and China each count for one new unicorn this past month.

Dropped 

Two companies were dropped from the unicorn board. 

Tonal raised $130 million in funding at a valuation between $550 million and $600 million according to the WSJ, which removed it from the unicorn board. The company previously raised funding at a $1.6 billion value in March 2021. 

And Cybereason, an endpoint security company, raised $100 million led by SoftBank which valued the company at $350 million, a 90% discount from its prior funding in July 2021 which valued the company at $3.2 billion. 

Earlier this year, online media company Vox Media received a lowered valuation in February 2023 at $500 million, down from $1 billion. In December 2022, online grocery retailer Oda was removed from the board with a new valuation of $350 million, down from $1.2 billion. 

As unicorn companies continue to raise funding, we expect more down rounds and for companies to drop off the list. 

We find around half of the unicorn board has raised funding since the beginning of 2022. Around 40% of the 1,400+ unicorn board companies last raised funding in 2020 and 2021. These companies will be coming back to raise funding from the private markets as startups typically raise funding every 18 months to two years. 

Here are the new unicorns:

AI

• New Jersey-based CoreWeave, a cloud infrastructure company that pivoted from Ethereum mining, raised a $221 million Series B led by Magnetar Capital. The funding valued the company at $2.2 billion.
• Quantexa, a London-based data analytics company that uses AI, raised a $129 million Series E funding. The funding was led by Singapore-based Sovereign Wealth Fund GIC which valued the company at $1.8 billion.
• San Francisco-based Replit, a developer platform that uses AI to complete code, raised a $97 million Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company was valued at $1.2 billion. 

Energy

• Nevada-based Ohmium, a hydrogen producer of green energy, raised a $250 million Series C funding which valued the company at $1 billion, led by TPG Rise Climate Fund.

Semiconductor

• B&C Chemical , a materials chip maker based in China, raised an $87 million funding valuing the company at $1 billion. The funding was led by China Development Bank Capital and Zhongping Capital.

Unicorn queries

• Unicorn leaderboard (1,453)
• Unicorns in the U.S. (718)
• Unicorns in Asia (460)
• European unicorns (196)
• Emerging unicorn leaderboard (367)
• Exited unicorns (426)

Methodology

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. 

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

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This is a monthly feature that runs down the month’s top 10 funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last year’s top rounds here.

The new year did not start slowly, as U.S.-based startups saw five rounds of more than $200 million. Of course, all the talk was about ​​OpenAI’s huge strategic raise, but health care, cybersecurity and renewable energy startups all saw large raises last month as investors wrote big checks.

​​1. OpenAI, $10B, artificial intelligence: The deal had been rumored for weeks, but was finally made official. Microsoft confirmed it has agreed to a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment” into OpenAI, the startup behind the artificial intelligence tools ChatGPT and DALL-E. The exact dollar amount was not confirmed, but Semafor reported earlier last month that Microsoft was in talks to invest as much as $10 billion. The deal follows a $1 billion investment in 2019 from Microsoft into the AI startup. It will help position Microsoft in what will be an all-out battle for AI dominance with other tech giants such as Alphabet and Amazon. Earlier this month The Wall Street Journal reported the startup could be valued at $29 billion thanks to a new tender offer.

2. Netskope, $401M, cybersecurity: There must be something about cybersecurity startups and $401 million in convertible notes. In October, Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based Arctic Wolf raised $401 million in convertible notes led by existing investor Owl Rock. This week another startup, Santa Clara, California-based Netskope received a $401 million convertible note investment led by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value. Both Netskope and Arctic Wolf are companies that have been rumored to be IPO candidates for the past few years, so such financings make sense with the path to the public market blocked. Convertible notes work like a short-term loan, but are repaid to the investor at a later point in equity — i.e., after an IPO — typically at a discount and can also include an interest rate. Founded in 2012, Netskope has now raised $1.4 billion, per Crunchbase.

3. (tied) Monogram Health, $375M, health care: Nashville-based Monogram Health is one of several health care startups to raise big last month, as the company closed a huge $375 million funding round. The round included strategic investments from the likes of CVS Health, Cigna Ventures and others. The startup is a specialty provider of in-home care for patients living with polychronic conditions, including chronic kidney disease. More than 37 million American adults live with chronic kidney disease, according to the company. Founded in 2019, the company has raised $555 million, per Crunchbase data.

3. (tied) Silicon Ranch Corp., $375M, renewable energy: Silicon Ranch Corp. actually announced a $600 million raise last month, but only the initial funding of $375 million has closed, with the additional $225 million expected to fund in early 2023. Founded in 2011, Silicon Ranch provides customized renewable energy, carbon and battery storage solutions for a variety of partners across North America. Last year, the company installed 11 new solar facilities that produce nearly 700 megawatts of new generating capacity. Silicon Ranch is no stranger to large raises; it raised $775 million early last year. The company has now raised about $1.6 billion, per Crunchbase.

5. Paradigm, $203M, health care: New York-based Paradigm emerged last month looking to take on one of the more complicated aspects of the health care industry. The startup, conceived by Arch Venture Partners and co-incubated by Arch and General Catalyst, raised a $203 million Series A. Paradigm is trying to change the way clinical trials are run, making it more equitable for patients to get in on them while also making it easier for health care providers to participate and cooperate. The tech-enabled platform aims to open up trials for more people and reduce barriers such as location and finance as it also looks to accelerate the clinical research process. Time will tell if it is successful — the startup already has big-name backers.

6. (tied) Asimov, $175M, biotech: In what seemed like a good month for biotech, Boston-based Asimov raised a $175 million Series B led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The startup is developing a synthetic biology platform to design and manufacture next-generation therapeutics, including biologics, cell and gene therapies, and RNA. It currently partners with more than 25 companies that include pharmaceutical companies, biotechs and manufacturing organizations. Founded in 2017, Asimov has raised more than $200 million, per the company.

6. (tied) VettaFi, $175M, financial services: In the financial realm, data is gold and VettaFi has a lot of that apparently. The New York-based startup formed last year and provides data analytics and indexing for financial advisers, asset managers and institutional investors. The company received a $175 million investment from global market developer TMX Group — whose operations include both the Toronto Stock Exchange and Montreal Exchange. The deal gives TMX a 21% common equity stake in VettaFi.

8. (tied) Colossal Biosciences, $150M, biotech: The idea of bringing back the dodo also was able to bring in big money. De-extinction platform Colossal Biosciences raised a $150 million Series B, giving the startup a valuation of more than $1 billion, per reports. The Dallas-based startup, which launched in 2021, plans to use the new cash infusion to continue to advance its genetic engineering, as well as keep developing its software and hardware solutions for applications involved with de-extinction, conservation and human health care. With this new round, Colossal has launched its Avian Genomics Group, which will pursue the de-extinction of the dodo. The startup previously had talked about bringing back the woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger. Last March, Colossal Bioscience raised a $60 million Series A led by Thomas Tull and At One Ventures. Per the company, it has now raised a total of $225 million.

8. (tied) Pathalys Pharma, $150M, biotech: Raleigh, North Carolina-based Pathalys Pharma raised $150 million through what it called “a combination of secured product financing and equity to support the two phase 3 clinical trials, registration efforts and pre-commercialization activities for upacicalcet” — which is used to treat hyperparathyroidism. Abingworth was the lead investor. Simultaneously, the company and Launch Therapeutics announced a collaboration to advance phase 3 clinical trials for the drug. Founded in 2021, Pathalys has raised $150 million to date, according to the late-stage biopharma startup.

10. Xpansiv, $125M, financial services: San Francisco-based Xpansiv was busy last month. The company announced the acquisition of Evolution Markets — which helps with transacting environmental commodities — and the closing of a $125 million round. Xpansiv said the new capital is “linked to the recent $400 million capital raise led by Blackstone Energy Partners which closed in August 2022.” New strategic investors Bank of America and Goldman Sachs participated in the new round. Xpansiv is looking to grow its market infrastructure platform which helps with energy transactions such as carbon credits and renewable energy certificates. Founded in 2017, the company has raised more than $700 million, according to Crunchbase.

Big global deals

Not all the big rounds went to U.S.-based startups, as another AI firm had a big raise.

• London-based global life insurance group Resolution Life raised a $1 billion investment from Nippon Life.

Methodology

We tracked the largest rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies in January. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Our Next Energy, a battery production startup, announced on Wednesday it raised a whopping $300 million Series B, bringing total funding to $390 million and raising its valuation to $1.2 billion, according to Crunchbase data.

The Series B was led by Franklin Templeton Investments and real estate-focused Fifth Wall with additional participation from the likes of Temasek Holdings and Coatue. The latest raise will help fund the operations of its battery cell factory that completed construction in December and will formally launch in 2024.

“We are transitioning from a startup funded by venture capital to a manufacturer fueled by growth capital,” said ONE CEO Mujeeb Ijaz. (Ijaz previously worked at Ford and Apple’s secretive transportation initiative before founding the company in 2020.) “That’s important in this environment where urgent demand for U.S.-based cell manufacturing is on the rise.”

Charging up the market

Indeed, the U.S. trails China in battery manufacturing. And, thanks to the rise of electric vehicles and the subsequent need for high-powered, easy-to-scale battery technology, that’s something the U.S. government is looking to change. 

The Inflation Reduction Act promises subsidies for EV companies, including a tax credit for those that use battery materials sourced in the U.S. The U.S. also passed a new law called the Invent Here, Make Here Act to prevent new developments in battery technology made in the U.S. from going overseas.

This comes at a time when supply chain issues and the rising cost of battery and metal material are bottlenecking U.S.-based electric-car manufacturers. Funding for electric-vehicle startups has plummeted from its 2021 highs thanks to the rising cost of materials. General Motors announced on Tuesday electric-vehicle production would slow down due to manufacturing and logistics issues. 

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Richmond, California-based Moxion Power is hoping to provide just that, as the carbon-free portable generator manufacturer locked up a $100 million Series B led by Tamarack Global.

Founded in 2020, the company has now raised just more than $113 million, according to Crunchbase data. Others participating in the round included Energy Impact Partners, Sunbelt Rentals, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Enterprise Holdings Ventures, Marubeni Ventures, Suffolk Technologies and Rocketship.vc.

Moxion manufactures mobile batteries and energy storage to enable last-mile electrification in sectors that include construction, transportation, events and entertainment, film production and telecommunications. 

The company recently started construction at its first manufacturing facility and expects to commission a second domestic manufacturing facility in 2024.

Moxion will use the funding to scale production at those facilities.

“Temporary power generation is a critical part of many industries, including construction, film production, live events and disaster response,” said co-founder and CEO Paul Huelskamp in a release. “As these industries look to decarbonize, there’s enormous demand for cleaner alternatives to the fossil-fuel-burning generators that these industries have historically relied on.”

Cleantech grows

Moxion’s funding is just the latest big round to go to VC-backed startups in the cleantech sector, as many industries look to decarbonize and go greener. 

So far this year, the industry has seen 17 funding rounds worth $100 million or more, according to Crunchbase data.

Despite venture capital investing slowing this year, cleantech is on pace to see a slight uptick from last year, according to Crunchbase. In 2021, VC-backed cleantech startups saw $7 billion of investments come into the sector. Already this year, investors have poured more than $6.6 billion into cleantech.

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Founded just this year, Galvanize is the brainchild of Apple Tree Partners, a life science-focused firm that incubated the company. The startup was originally envisioned as three companies pursuing different medical problems, but will now be combined to use one platform for multiple use cases.

The funding will go toward commercializing the startup’s pulsed electric field energy platform to help treat cardiac arrhythmias, symptoms of bronchitis and solid tumors. The platform uses high-voltage and high-frequency electrical currents that can disrupt disease progression in the body.

Its slew of products are in various stages of development. One, for treating bronchial symptoms, received Breakthrough Device Designation from the Food and Drug Administration and is enrolling patients for its clinical trial. Its tool for cardiac arrhythmias is rolling out in Europe. And its oncology system uses electrical currents to stimulate the patient’s immune system to attack a tumor.

“We are investing meaningfully to prove safety and demonstrate enhanced outcomes in our initial clinical targets, and we continue to explore additional platform applications,” Galvanize CEO and founder Jonathan Waldstreicher said in a statement.

A rare vote of confidence

Galvanize is one of the few companies having luck raising funding in a tight market. Most biotech companies are struggling to raise bigger rounds than their pandemic-fueled 2020 and 2021 raises and extend their runway. 

Funding among U.S. biotech startups reached a record high of $77 billion in 2021, per Crunchbase data, compared to a comparatively meager $24 billion so far in 2022. 

Funding will continue to slow in this space as startups and venture firms hunker down and weather this economic uncertainty, and we’re unlikely to see companies pursue new research or clinical indications for their existing products. But Galvanize’s flexible platform allows it to investigate different use cases for the same platform.

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Yesterday, Houston-based Chevron Technology Ventures LLC announced a new $90 million fund – its seventh – to focus on innovation within the energy industry.

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This fund promises to invest in “high-tech, high growth startups and breakthrough technologies” that will help Chevron’s oil and gas business, and create growth opportunities in the future, according to its press release.

It’s important to note that venture investing is not a new endeavor for Chevron, which formed its fund in 1999. It’s made over 90 investments over the past 20 years, per its press release, In 2018, it launched a $100 million focused fund to target the future of energy.

Its most recent investment closed last week, when it participated in a $68 million funding round for Canada-based clean energy company Carbon Engineering. It’s also seen at least 17 exits over time, according to its Crunchbase profile.

Chevron appears unafraid of the pushback that some corporations get for being self-serving when it comes to investments. It plans to invest in early-to mid-stage companies, as well as partnership funds.

We’re seeing more corporations jump into startup investment, which is part of the reason that Touchdown Ventures, a firm which advises corporations like Kellogg on how to manage their venture funds, came to be.

Kana Lee, a marketing manager at Touchdown Ventures, said that with this uptick, corporations need to take a moment to decide whether they are designing a venture capital fund in the most “conducive” way.

The challenge is that some corporations pull people from random departments like merger and acquisitions or finance and task them with designing a fund, Lee said to Crunchbase News.

As for why we’re seeing more companies engaging with startups? Lee said as big industries realize they are starting to get disrupted by startups, it’s the new “win-win” situation.

The result: the startup gains the capital and leadership support they need, she said, while the corporation finds a way to help the younger venture become a viable, long-lasting business.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias