AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, NVIDIA, and Meta are dominating the headlines in 2025. It feels like in the business and tech press, everything is about AI.
We know that ChatGPT dominates consumer mindshare for branding, and has been a runaway success since their November 2022 ChatGPT launch. Claude has been hot with developers using Claude Code, but gets very little consumer adoption when looking at the whole population.
Elon Musk has a vendetta against Sam Altman for, as he says it, turning the non-profit into a for-profit and effectively “stealing” ownership.
Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is aggressively poaching employees from OpenAI and other big labs, with some rumored pay packages worth up to $100 million or even billion-dollar offers.
Through all this hype and total narrative domination, some names can get lost in the shuffle. Most of us outside of tech and finance aren’t aware of CoreWeave, but they’ve grown fast as a key player this year and with their recent IPO.
To cut through some of the noise, we wanted to build our own ranking list of startups gaining traction.
We put our heads together and refined metrics on AI companies that have received lots of funding and are funded in the Silicon Valley ecosystem. This ranking sheds light on the hottest AI companies and allows for clear comparisons with similar funding and business models. It also helps unearth the power laws and their relationships to funding and company concentration in this space.
Top 25 AI Startups Ranking Table
Here’s the big kahuna. The master ranking table. It’s no surprise that OpenAI tops the list, but some may be surprised to see xAI and CoreWeave topping the charts.
We analyzed data from Crunchbase and Keywords Everywhere to uncover the top US AI companies with top investors from Silicon Valley.
| Ranking | Company | GFD Tech100 Final Score* | GFD Funding Score* | GFD Website Score* | GFD Branded Keyword Score* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | xAI | 100 | 100 | 89.5 | 61.4 |
| 2 | Databricks | 98.7 | 98.7 | 81.4 | 67.4 |
| 3 | LMArena | 97.9 | 78.1 | 87.4 | 100 |
| 4 | OpenAI | 97.2 | 85.2 | 95.4 | 75.3 |
| 5 | Anthropic | 94.2 | 85.7 | 84.7 | 74.3 |
| 6 | Lovable | 92.7 | 77.7 | 87.6 | 82.2 |
| 7 | Decagon | 92.2 | 93.8 | 72 | 64.1 |
| 8 | Mercor | 89.5 | 72.3 | 83.2 | 86.1 |
| 9 | ClickHouse | 89.2 | 86.4 | 77.1 | 63 |
| 10 | LiveKit | 89.1 | 83.2 | 76 | 70.2 |
| 11 | Scale | 88.7 | 82.2 | 77.9 | 69 |
| 11 | Skild AI | 88.7 | 90.4 | 67.4 | 63.1 |
| 13 | Suno | 88.6 | 72.8 | 91.2 | 74.2 |
| 14 | Baseten | 88.1 | 86.8 | 72.5 | 63.1 |
| 15 | Rogo | 86.6 | 88.5 | 66.5 | 60.2 |
| 16 | Deepgram | 86.4 | 80.1 | 77.5 | 65.7 |
| 17 | Zocks | 86.2 | 83 | 70.4 | 66.1 |
| 18 | Vercel | 85.9 | 70.6 | 86.6 | 73.6 |
| 19 | Thinking Machines Lab | 85.7 | 73.7 | 72.5 | 80.8 |
| 20 | Anysphere | 85.3 | 82.1 | 69.4 | 65.8 |
| 21 | Lambda | 85.1 | 81 | 71.6 | 65.2 |
| 22 | Prime Intellect | 84.7 | 76.1 | 70.3 | 74.8 |
| 23 | Outtake | 84.5 | 85.4 | 67.2 | 58.5 |
| 23 | Listen Labs | 84.5 | 77.1 | 79 | 63.3 |
| 23 | Groq | 84.5 | 73.7 | 79.6 | 69.4 |
*GFD’s Tech100 score is a final composite score of the Funding Score, Website Score, and the Branded Keyword score.
Key Takeaways:
- The three highest-ranking AI companies in February 2026 are xAI, Databricks, and LMArena, leading their industry based on their overall Tech100 score, a mix of funding strength, website performance, and branded search demand.
- Rogo posted the largest month-over-month gain, climbing 2014 positions compared to last month, and ranking #25 this month, signaling accelerating momentum for the company.
- LMArena, Lovable, Mercor, Suno, and Vercel rank high among the top 25 AI brands despite lower than average funding scores — that means their website and brand are powering them up in the ranking.
- 15 of the top 25 AI companies also place in the top 25 of the Tech 100, which ranks companies across all industries.
Recent News:
- xAI’s AI-powered chatbot Grok has achieved over 500,000 active users, and the company is expected to finalize a significant $6 billion funding round that will boost its valuation to an estimated $18 billion.
- Databricks recently announced that Toyota is adopting its Unified Data and AI Platform, “vista,” to power its data and AI platform.
- LMArena recently raised $150 million in Series A funding, achieving a $1.7 billion valuation, and also launched its Video Arena on the web.
Ranking the Top Startups by Funding Score
Funding is huge. This breakout highlights those firms that have raised the most venture capital rounds, ranked by a combination of date and volume. Note we are also including post-IPO raises as well. These are worth considering because they’re all part of the competitive system that all cybersecurity startups are competing in.
| Ranking | Company | Total Funding Amount | Most Recent Funding Amount | Last Funding Date | GFD Funding Score* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | xAI | $42.73B | $20.00B | 1/6/2026 | 100 |
| 2 | Databricks | $27.61B | $1.80B | 1/23/2026 | 98.7 |
| 3 | Decagon | $481M | $250M | 1/28/2026 | 93.8 |
| 4 | Ricursive Intelligence | $335M | $300M | 1/26/2026 | 91.2 |
| 5 | Skild AI | $1.84B | $1.40B | 1/14/2026 | 90.4 |
| 6 | Rogo | $154M | $75M | 1/28/2026 | 88.5 |
| 7 | humans& | $480M | $480M | 1/20/2026 | 88.3 |
| 8 | OpenEvidence | $767M | $250M | 1/21/2026 | 87 |
| 9 | Baseten | $585M | $300M | 1/20/2026 | 86.8 |
| 10 | ClickHouse | $1.15B | $400M | 1/16/2026 | 86.4 |
*GFD’s Funding Score captures funding volume and velocity by combing total funding with recent funding amount and recency.
Key Takeaways:
- Ranking #1, xAI leads with $42.73B in total funding and a GFD Funding Score of 100/100.
- Of the 1271 Artificial Intelligence companies analyzed, xAI recorded the largest recent raise at $20.00B on January 06, 2026 (26 days ago).
- humans& raised $480M on January 20, 2026, which represents 100.0% of total funding to date.
- ClickHouse moved 2648 positions in our funding rankings since last month.
- The #1 ranking Artificial Intelligence company by the GFD Funding Score is xAI, with a score of 100. That means it’s #1 across all industries we measured across our full Tech 100 analysis of 3362 companies.
1. xAI
GFD Funding Score*: 100
Total Funding Amount: $42.73B
Most Recent Funding Amount: $20.00B
Days Since Last Funding: 26
Out of our 1271 ranked Artificial Intelligence companies, xAI ranks #1 in funding. The company’s total funding is $42.73B and the last time they were funded was on January 6, 2026 for $20.00B. The last funding type was Series E. The total amount of lead investors that xAI has is 4 and their top investors are: Andreessen Horowitz, Valor Equity Partners, NVIDIA, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital.
2. Databricks
GFD Funding Score*: 98.7
Total Funding Amount: $27.61B
Most Recent Funding Amount: $1.80B
Days Since Last Funding: 9
Out of our 1271 ranked Artificial Intelligence companies, Databricks ranks #2 in funding. The company’s total funding is $27.61B and the last time they were funded was on January 23, 2026 for $1.80B. The last funding type was Debt Financing. The total amount of lead investors that Databricks has is 16 and their top investors are: Andreessen Horowitz, Blue Owl, NVIDIA, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Insight Partners.
3. Decagon
GFD Funding Score*: 93.8
Total Funding Amount: $481M
Most Recent Funding Amount: $250M
Days Since Last Funding: 4
Out of our 1271 ranked Artificial Intelligence companies, Decagon ranks #3 in funding. The company’s total funding is $481M and the last time they were funded was on January 28, 2026 for $250M. The last funding type was Series D. The total amount of lead investors that Decagon has is 5 and their top investors are: Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Forerunner, SV Angel, Index Ventures.
GFD Website Score Breakdown
Website traffic and traffic growth are important but don’t always line up perfectly with other attributes and events like funding. We were curious to see which of these companies saw the strongest website traffic and growth. Our website score captures the volume of recent website visits and combines it with the company’s website growth trends.
| Ranking | Company | Last Month Total Visits | Average Visits (6 Months) | Monthly Visit Growth | GFD Website Score* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brave | 627.3M | 530.2M | 4.56% | 95.8 |
| 2 | OpenAI | 730.1M | 918.1M | -15.67% | 95.4 |
| 3 | Perplexity | 240.0M | 200.5M | -13.21% | 92.2 |
| 4 | Character.ai | 141.1M | 129.6M | -2.04% | 91.7 |
| 5 | Suno | 80.5M | 57.2M | 18.64% | 91.2 |
| 6 | xAI | 42.3M | 27.2M | 19.66% | 89.5 |
| 7 | ElevenLabs | 43.3M | 45.1M | -1.32% | 89 |
| 7 | QuillBot | 59.1M | 54.6M | -10.52% | 89 |
| 9 | Paradox | 22.1M | 19.3M | 10.30% | 87.8 |
| 10 | Lovable | 25.6M | 22.4M | 2.25% | 87.6 |
*GFD’s Website Score captures the volume of recent website visits and combines it with the company’s website growth trends.
Key Takeaways:
- OpenAI ranks #2, and earns the most average monthly website traffic over the last six months with 918.1M visits per month.
- The artificial intelligence industry leaders with the most average monthly website traffic volume over the last six months are OpenAI (918.1M) and Brave (530.2M).
- xAI (+19.7%) and Suno (+18.6%) have seen their website traffic increase the most month over month.
- Paradox moved 75 positions in our funding rankings since last month.
1. Brave
GFD Website Score*: 95.8
Last Month’s Total Visits: 627.3M
Monthly Average Visits Over 6 Months: 530.2M
Monthly Visit Growth: 4.6%
Out of our 1271 ranked Artificial Intelligence companies, Brave ranks #1 in website traffic. Last month, the website saw 627.3M total visits and increased by 4.6% from the month before that. The average visits over the past 6 months were 530.2M.
2. OpenAI
GFD Website Score*: 95.4
Last Month’s Total Visits: 730.1M
Monthly Average Visits Over 6 Months: 918.1M
Monthly Visit Growth: -15.7%
Out of our 1271 ranked Artificial Intelligence companies, OpenAI ranks #2 in website traffic. Last month, the website saw 730.1M total visits and decreased by -15.7% from the month before that. The average visits over the past 6 months were 918.1M.
3. Perplexity
GFD Website Score*: 92.2
Last Month’s Total Visits: 240.0M
Monthly Average Visits Over 6 Months: 200.5M
Monthly Visit Growth: -13.2%
Out of our 1271 ranked Artificial Intelligence companies, Perplexity ranks #3 in website traffic. Last month, the website saw 240.0M total visits and decreased by -13.2% from the month before that. The average visits over the past 6 months were 200.5M.
AI Startups with Strongest Branded Search Growth
A great way to measure brand growth is by analyzing keyword growth for the company across a period of time. We sourced Google Search keyword data for companies on the list and ranked by a score that accounted for total keyword search as well as search volume change over the last year.
| Ranking | Company | Total Keyword Search Volume | Average Monthly Search Volume Change (1 Year) | 1 Year Trend Positive or Negative? | GFD Company Keyword Ranking* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LMArena | 2.2M | 660K | + | 100 |
| 2 | Stickerbox | 10K | 4K | + | 94.8 |
| 3 | Periodic Labs | 5K | 2K | + | 89.3 |
| 4 | Emergent | 165K | 41K | + | 89.2 |
| 5 | Mercor | 165K | 36K | + | 86.1 |
| 6 | Weavy | 18K | 5K | + | 84.8 |
| 7 | JARS AI | 8K | 2K | + | 83.3 |
| 8 | Lovable | 1.0M | 133K | + | 82.2 |
| 9 | Kilo Code | 27K | 6K | + | 80.9 |
| 10 | Thinking Machines Lab | 41K | 8K | + | 80.8 |
*GFD’s Branded Keyword Ranking is a metric that combines monthly branded keyword search volume with a 1-year linear trend that is observed weekly and adjusted by search volume.
Key Takeaways:
- LMArena ranks #1 for branded search demand with 2.2M total monthly branded keyword searches and a Keyword Ranking Score of 100.
- Thinking Machines Lab is the artificial intelligence company whose branded search is increasing the fastest relative to their size. Search demand is rising for them this year at a pace equivalent to adding 39.2% of today’s volume each month.
- LMArena ranks #1 and leads in total branded keyword demand with 2.2M searches this month.
- Stickerbox moved 8 positions in our rankings since last month.
1. LMArena
GFD Branded Keyword Score*: 100
Total Keyword Search Volume: 2.2M
Average Weekly Search Volume Change: 660K
Out of our 1271 ranked Artificial Intelligence companies, LMArena ranks #1 in branded keyword searches. Last month, their total branded keyword search volume was 2.2M. Over the course of the last year, the average monthly change for their branded keyword search volume was 660K, indicating an increase in their 1-year trend.
2. Stickerbox
GFD Branded Keyword Score*: 94.8
Total Keyword Search Volume: 10K
Average Weekly Search Volume Change: 4K
Out of our 1271 ranked Artificial Intelligence companies, Stickerbox ranks #2 in branded keyword searches. Last month, their total branded keyword search volume was 10K. Over the course of the last year, the average monthly change for their branded keyword search volume was 4K, indicating an increase in their 1-year trend.
3. Periodic Labs
GFD Branded Keyword Score*: 89.3
Total Keyword Search Volume: 5K
Average Weekly Search Volume Change: 2K
Out of our 1271 ranked Artificial Intelligence companies, Periodic Labs ranks #3 in branded keyword searches. Last month, their total branded keyword search volume was 5K. Over the course of the last year, the average monthly change for their branded keyword search volume was 2K, indicating an increase in their 1-year trend.
Methodology and Sources
- Methodology: We collected data for 10k+ companies from Crunchbase and aggregated it into a set of scores through the use of quantitative transformations and expertly curated weighted averages.
- Sources: Crunchbase and Keywords Everywhere
Update Log
- February 1st, 2026: Monthly update.
- January 2nd, 2026: Monthly Update
- December 1st, 2025: Monthly update.
- November 1st, 2025: Monthly update.
