Spotlight on Artificial Intelligence: Leading Private AI Companies

Our Innovating Industries series breaks down the innovations shaping tomorrow’s economy—and the private market investment opportunities emerging with them.

Our latest report revisits what has become one of the most transformative and sought-after industries in the private markets: Artificial Intelligence (AI). Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, AI has evolved from a curiosity to a cornerstone of every business and is at the forefront of the tech investment landscape. AI has held its footing as the most popular industry amongst EquityZen investors since Q4 2022.¹ Since then, the industry has exploded, garnering billions of dollars in investments with new AI unicorns making the map each month. It’s clear that AI is not just trending—it’s rewriting the playbook across industries, with billions in fresh capital and a surge in AI-native startups reshaping the market landscape.

In this piece, we’ll explore the state of AI, its evolving sub-industries, and the emerging private market investment opportunities as more AI companies mature from stealth to scale.

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Artificial intelligence refers to the capability of machines to mimic human cognitive functions like reasoning, learning, and decision-making. Today, AI is no longer a futuristic concept—it’s a foundational layer powering industries from biotech to logistics. Way more than just a chatbot. 

As society moves to optimize productivity, automate repetitive tasks and increase efficiency, AI is playing an increasingly important role in aiding that transformation. From optimizing manufacturing workflows to personalizing patient treatments for oncology, AI is fueling both incremental improvements and category-defining disruption. Its reach now extends beyond enterprise software into sectors like defense, agriculture, retail, and fintech.

The Private Market AI Landscape 

Global AI spending is expected to more than double by 2028 reaching $632 billion. This presents a massive opportunity that investors are looking to capitalize on. In 2024, AI startups raised over a staggering $100B globally. In fact, nearly 50% of all new unicorns in 2024 were AI companies. And, given the fact that these companies are so young, very few AI companies have made it to the public markets yet. As AI grows, investors are shifting focus from general-purpose tools to enterprise-ready platforms with real-world traction.

Must-Know AI Sub-Industries in 2025

1. Generative AI 

Generative AI, which creates new content like text, images, and music by analyzing large data sets, led the initial AI frenzy fueled by ChatGPT’s launch. The market has continued its rapid expansion with tools like GPT-4.5, Claude 3, and Gemini Ultra entering the market. Generative AI companies continue to see growing investor interest, attracting $33.9 billion in private investment in 2024, up 18% from 2023.

In 2025, Generative AI powers everything from search to software development and creative media. While household names like OpenAI and Anthropic lead the market, startups like Cognition and Pika are applying generative AI to try to solve a wide range of use cases from cybersecurity, to legal workflows, and even product design.

2. AI Infrastructure

As AI adoption grows, AI models require an increasing amount of processing, memory, and storage resources. Companies scaling their usage of foundation models are running into performance, latency, and cost bottlenecks. Therefore, a new wave of companies is focused on the infrastructure required to build and serve large AI models. This has led to growing demand for tools like: 

• Vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate)
• Data & Storage solutions (Cohesity, Scale AI, Lambda)
• Hardware (Cerebras Systems, SambaNova Systems, Groq, Lightmatter)

According to PitchBook’s Emerging Tech: AI Infrastructure Q4 2024, infrastructure-related AI startups raised over $12.6B globally in 2024, up from $5.1B in 2022. This indicates that investors see AI-enabling tools as the next layer of opportunity.

3. Enterprise AI

Enterprise AI, which uses AI to make business processes less manual and time consuming, is becoming a strategic priority for large enterprises. Seventy-eight percent of respondents in a McKinsey survey said that their organizations use AI in at least one function. Given this adoption, the market for enterprise AI tools is expected to grow to over $170 billion by 2031. 

Some enterprise tools are focusing on automating routine processes to boost productivity, while others are leveraged to transform the way businesses operate. They span categories from search (e.g. Glean) to sales, natural language processing (e.g. Cohere) data science (e.g. H2O.ai), process automation (e.g. Automation Anywhere, DataRobot), marketing and more. The enterprise AI market is rapidly evolving with new entrants competing for market share. Because of this, investors should focus on companies that have proven their value through strategic partnerships with large enterprises and continuing scale.

4. Verticalized AI Platforms

Another defining trend is the rise of verticalized AI platforms—startups focused on applying AI to specific industries rather than building general-purpose tools. These include legal AI platforms like Harvey and AI copilots for sectors like accounting (e.g. Digits), logistics (e.g. Transfix) and financial services (e.g. Hebbia). This vertical approach allows startups to build deeper product moats, navigate bespoke regulatory considerations, and scale through industry-specific integrations. As Bessemer Venture Partners noted in its 2024 State of the Cloud report, “vertical AI SaaS is poised to generate stronger retention metrics than horizontal offerings due to domain specialization and embedded workflows.”

Leading Private AI Companies to Watch

Generative AI

• Open AI 
  • OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company whose stated mission is to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. 
  • In February 2025, OpenAI's ChatGPT reportedly surpassed 400 million weekly active users and also announced that more than 2 million businesses use ChatGPT at work.
• Anthropic
  • Anthropic is an AI research firm, claiming to focus on enhancing the safety and functionality of AI systems. 
  • As of February 2025, Anthropic reportedly projects up to $3.7 billion in revenue for the year and expects that its revenue could grow to as high as $34.5 billion in 2027.
• Perplexity
  • Perplexity AI is a developer of  AI-driven chat and search tools.  
  • In March 2025, Perplexity and Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile’s parent company) announced a partnership to build a chatbot powered "AI Phone."
• xAI
  • Founded by Elon Musk, xAI builds advanced AI-driven models.  These models include Grok for language learning and Aurora for image generation.
  • In December 2024, xAi raised $6 billion in Series C funding from investors including A16Z, Blackrock and Fidelity Management & Research Company.

AI Infrastructure

• Scale AI 
  • Scale AI is a data-management startup that claims to specialize in helping companies label and curate data for artificial intelligence applications.
  • In November 2024, Scale AI announced a partnership with Microsoft Azure AI, to accelerate enterprise generative AI adoption with fine-tuned Azure AI models.   
• Lightmatter
  • Lightmatter is a photonic computing company that says that it develops methods for computer chips to communicate and perform calculations using silicon photonics. 
  • In December 2024, Lightmatter announced it joined the Ultra Accelerator Link Consortium (UALink™), a new industry initiative focused on creating high-speed, low-latency open interconnect standards for scale-up AI systems.
• Groq
  • Groq develops compute accelerators for artificial intelligence and machine learning.
  • In September 2024, Groq partnered with oil producer Aramco to build a giant data center in Saudi Arabia with hopes to run AI systems across the MIddle East, Africa and India.
• Cerebras 
  • Cerebras Systems is a computer systems company that aims to develop computers and chips for artificial intelligence.
  • In March 2025, Cerebras Systems announced the launch of six new AI inference datacenters powered by Cerebras Wafer-Scale Engines.
• Sambanova Systems
  • SambaNova Systems builds AI hardware and integrated systems to run AI applications from the data center to the cloud.
  • In February 2025, SambaNova announced DeepSeek-R1 671B is now running on SambaNova Cloud at 198 tokens per second, which it claims is faster and more efficient than any other platform.
• Lambda
  • Lambda is a provider of on premise and cloud-based computing platforms designed for AI development. 
  • In December 2024, Lambda raised $480M in a Series D funding round.

Enterprise AI 

• H2O.ai
  • H2O.ai is a provider of a cloud-based open-source machine learning platform as well as enterprise AI solutions.
  • In November 2024, H2O.ai announced a partnership with Dell Technologies to deliver a validated generative and predictive AI solution through the Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA.
• Mistral AI
  • Mistral AI is a Paris-based artificial intelligence startup specializing in the development of open-source large language models (LLMs) that aim to be efficient, customizable, and cost-effective.
  • In April 2025 the company announced the availability of its latest flagship model, Pixtral Large 25.02, in Amazon Web Services.
• Glean 
  • Glean is an AI-powered work assistant that aims to enhance productivity by integrating with enterprise applications and databases to deliver precise search results. 
  • In February 2025, Glean announced it achieved $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in the fourth quarter and claims it doubled its customer base in the past year
• SandboxAQ
  • SandboxAQ is an enterprise SaaS company that provides AI and quantum computing solutions.
  • Based on their Series E round in October of 2024, SandboxAQ has a post-money valuation of approximately $6.5B.

Trends Shaping the Market

The private AI market is maturing rapidly—and with that maturity comes a shift in investor expectations. While AI startups are still attracting massive sums of capital, as the market gets more crowded investors are digging deeper into defensibility, product-market fit, and revenue traction. While the days of hype-driven, pre-product funding rounds may not be over, investors are keen to focus on private companies with differentiated technology and tangible adoption.

Valuations have started to normalize compared to the 2023 highs, particularly for early-stage companies. According to Carta’s Q1 2025 Private Markets Report, median Series A valuations for AI startups have cooled slightly from 2023’s peak of $75M to approximately $62M in early 2025. However, growth-stage companies with clear enterprise traction—particularly those in infrastructure, healthcare, or defense—are still commanding premium valuations. Late-stage AI unicorns like Anthropic, Scale AI, and Perplexity AI are actively raising or trading in secondary markets at valuations north of $15B, signaling sustained investor confidence in the category. On EquityZen’s platform, nearly one-third of AI companies are trading at a premium to their last round of funding. 

Finally, M&A activity is heating up across both strategic buyers and hyperscalers. Companies like Salesforce, Amazon, and Nvidia are actively acquiring AI startups to accelerate their product roadmaps and secure access to talent. In 2024, Salesforce acquired Tenyx to build its autonomous agent capabilities. Similarly, Cisco acquired Splunk, enhancing its data analytics and cybersecurity capabilities. Nvidia’s investment in Hugging Face marked a strategic push into open-source models and model serving tools. Not to be outdone, tech leaderGoogle acquired Character.AI for $2.7 billion. As cutting edge AI technology becomes a key differentiator across industries, AI acquisitions will remain a key way for the largest tech companies to stay ahead of competitors.

Looking Ahead: Still in Early Innings

AI is expected to contribute $19.9 trillion to the global economy, a market opportunity that investors cannot ignore. While leading public companies are racing to integrate AI, the most exciting breakthroughs are still happening in private startups where the abundance of private capital is fueling massive growth.

From foundational models to industry-specific tools, AI’s reach is broad—but the opportunity in private markets is just getting started. Whether you’re investing in core model builders or next-gen AI applications, one thing is clear: AI isn’t just transforming industries—it’s inventing new ones.

Looking for your next AI investment? Check out our listings page to find your next investment.  

Not all pre-IPO companies will go public or be acquired, and not all IPOs or acquisitions are or will become successful investments. There are inherent risks in pre-IPO investments, including the risk of loss of the entire investment, illiquidity, and fluctuations in value and returns. Investors must be able to afford the loss of their entire investment.  The information provided is intended for reference only and does not constitute a recommendation or personal financial advice.

Footnotes:

1. Secondary Spotlight: EquityZen data as of April 2025.