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TWiST500

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TWiST500

Welcome to the TWiST500 Database!

’ living list of the most important startups in the world.
These are the 1% of private, venture-backed companies that our team believes will be the most successful in the world — as determined by IPO or exit value.
Continuously updated. Contact the team at .
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240
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TWiST500 Directory

TWiST500

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Why we picked them
32
Profound
SEO is a big industry, but one that could be consumed as search moves from a list of links to answers. So, brands will need a new conduit to reach search users. A new form of SEO, one aimed at AI-powered search is required, and Profound wants to build it. It’s too early to know which of the inevitable few startups that work on this problem will win, but Profound appears to have an early lead on the market. That crossed with a clearly growing TAM make it a great addition to the TWiST500.
Neubird
With rapid adoption of automation in enterprise IT, Neubird stands out for its tailored solutions addressing downtime and inefficiency. Backed by rising market interest and scalable use cases, it is well-positioned for success in the growing IT automation space.
Loveable
Loveable is a TWiST500 company because it's adding ARR faster than nearly any other software startup we can recall. Perhaps Cursor is growing faster, but it's a very, very short list. It's also a European startup which is good fun, and has an AI-first appraoch. Clear the decks, Loveable could get big.
Fractile AI
FlexAI
French AI startups are a meme at this point, because there are so many of them cropping up. Count FlexAI amongst that cohort. And what it’s doing is not just more AI models. Instead, Flex wants to improve compute architecture so that it’s more efficient, and hardware-flexible to use modern AI models.
Pathway
AI models are great. But no company wants to offer up someone else's model, plain. No, companies want to use their own data alongside AI models. That said, getting real-time data into an AI workflow so that the information can be used by the model in question is not simple. Pathway wants to abstract that for its customers, removing an entire bloc of complexity from the AI app creation process.
Safe Superintelligence
The company was founded this year by Ilya Sutskever (former OpenAI chief scientist), Daniel Levy (ex-OpenAI engineer), and Daniel Gross (former Y Combinator partner). In just a few months, they’ve raised $1 billion at a $5 billion valuation from investors like a16z, Sequoia, and Nat Friedman’s NFDG. Their mission? To build safe superintelligence... The founders don’t give us much more than that, as you can see from their website.
Wordware
One thesis that some folks have is that AI agents are poised to radically shake up how businesses handle processes, automation, and even work. Wordware's software is a bet that not only is that future true, but that lots of folks are going to need to build AI agents -- not just developers. The company wants you to use natural language to program agents, and raised $30M last year despite relative youth. The company's TAM is juicy, its approach interesting, and it's at the bleeding-edge of AI. Hard to not think it's headed somewhere big.
H
French AI company; important for EU, working on superintelligence. Artificial intelligence is a global race. This French company focuses on building superintelligent systems while navigating the EU's strict regulatory landscape. With Europe’s growing appetite for tech sovereignty, H has the potential to become a cornerstone of European AI leadership.
CuspAI
The theme of “AI applied to X” may seem like a tired trope, but in certain applications it’s very interesting. Applying AI to materials for energy generation is one such place; you can’t call that a GPT wrapper, can you?
Humanoid-ish robots “capable of making and executing decisions independently” thanks to AI. This robot seems more built for repetitive tasks in a single area than, say, navigating your house.
EvolutionaryScale
What if we took modern AI technology, and pointed it at biology with a huge dose of capital underpinning the entire project? That’s what EvolutionaryScale is doing, and investors poured nine-figures into its Seed round.
Another construction automation startup that we added as part of a larger group. Faster, cheaper construction? Using robots and software? We love it.
Robotically printed homes are cool, but often made out of concrete. How about robotically printed homes, but made out of recycled plastic? That’s a twofer.
PlayAI
AI + voice is going to be huge
Udio
As with Suno, Udio’s model hinges on not losing a critical court case about its training data. If it does prevail, it could become one of the next great consumer brands. That would come with a massive financial windfall.
Daydream
AI applied to shopping. The startup raised a $50 million Seed round, meaning that it has ample capital on hand to build out its vision. Today, however, its product is more hinted at than launched, with a waitlist on offer. Still, True Ventures, Forerunning, Index, and Google Ventures all invested in the startup.
PodcastAI
Adding Riverside to the TWiST500 was not a hard choice. PodcastAI is far earlier-stage, making it a slightly more dicey inclusion. But, its tooling for podcast creators (its post-production features in particular) are top-notch. Given our general thesis that podcasts matter, and will matter more in time, building AI-infused tools for the medium makes good sense.
Tokeny
This one is a bit further out of our usual domain of expertise. But, let's not be too conservative. Tokeny helps businesses tokenzie assets. Thinks bonds, funds, art, and the like. As crypto finds its legs in 2025 and anticipates a more fecund regulatory environment oin the coming years, more assets could be brought to the blockchain. TOkeny wants to help all of them make the leap. If the crypto-kids are right about the future of asset ownership -- that it is onchain -- then Tokeny could grow into something truly huge.
SevenAI
In the wake of the CrowdStrike mess, we’ve put more focus on cybersecurity startups. SevenAI wants to, unsurprisingly, bring AI into the cybersecurity realm, which sounds like a good idea to us. That plus a generous Seed round make this one to watch.
Created by Humans
Bedrock Materials
Venture-backed Bedrock Materials is one of two sodium-ion battery startups that we added to the TWiST500. Both are wagers that the mass-storage of energy that the world needs as it pivots to more renewable energy sources won’t rest on simply building more, or bigger lithium-ion batteries. A big wager, but one with even larger potential returns.
KiteKraft
Dryad Networks
since we have been talking about this on TWiST recently....Dryad develops early wildfire detection networks, providing crucial tools to combat the increasing threat of wildfires globally. Their technology offers timely alerts, potentially mitigating the devastating impacts of wildfires
Juicyway
Juicyway is a Nigerian fintech company focused on cross-border payments. With just a few million in raised capital, it would usually bit a bit early for us to add to our list. However, with north of $1 billion processed already, Juicyway has clearly struck a market nerve. And with the African fintech story far from fully written, it has a huge market to go after. Not to mention $3 million in fresh capital.
The Bot Company
Founded by Kyle Vogt, who previously helped found Cruise, this robotics startup raised $150 million in a single go, at a $400 million pre-money valuation. Investors clearly expect another Cruise-style win here.
Skild
The two numbers that matter for TWiST500 fans are $300 million and $1.5 billion. That’s the dollar amount that Skild raised and the valuation it earned in the process. Why do we care about Skild? It’s building — a “scalable foundation model for robotics.” The great hope is that modern LLM technology will unlock a more general-purpose set of capabilities for human robots. And while Figure et al seem to be making their own software for their in-house hardware, more names in the game is a win for us, the consumer. As we say, more competition is better. Lightspeed, Coatue, SoftBank, and Jeff Bezos led the round.
Vatn Systems
Vatn Systems wants to sell underwater drones en masse. And it is planning on doing so at a fraction of existing costs. We love some American Dynamism here at TWiST, and with the company headquartered in Rhode Island, Alex was an instant fan.
Radian Aerospace
Lumen Orbit
One of the biggest themes in tech today is data center capacity. Or, a lack thereof. Power constraints and cooling requirements mean that datacenters today are best situated in very specific regions of the world. But what about space? Lumen Orbit is a moonshot -- nearly literally -- on building future datacenters in space. You can see the advantages: Free cooling and lots of solar power. The downside, of course, will be simply getting the tech so far above us. But with launch costs falling, perhaps? Lumen could fail. But if it succeeds, it could become a simply massive company.
47
Rembrand
Here's a company that has a real shot at getting big, but that I (Alex) worry about a bit. Remembrand uses generative AI to insert branded materials (images, etc) into videos. The gist is that online users hate ads, and view them as a pain in the backside. Also, ad blocking is only becoming more and more popular. So, Remembrand wants to integrate advertising into videos for brands. You can't skip it if it's native, right? On one hand, good that tech is solving a problem. On the other hand, more ads that are harder to avoid? Sounds like a future IPO. And gnashed teeth.
Unitary
Unitary is at the forefront of AI-powered content moderation, providing digital platforms with tools to manage online content more effectively. As regulatory scrutiny on social media and digital platforms intensifies, demand for Unitary’s solutions is expected to rise. However, the fast-moving AI landscape presents challenges, as emerging technologies could reshape the market and introduce new competition.
Character AI
Lawhive
Music AI
Consumers love music, and love AI. And consumer AI music companies are doing well. But what about using AI for audio production work? Music AI's tech that allows for stem separation, mastering, and other critical and human-driven tasks today in audio production is super cool. Music AI has built consumer tech (Moises) and tools for pros. Combined with a fresh new $40 million round, and we're super bullish on the company's vision, and product mix.
Decart
Decart is innovating with real-time AI-generated video games, representing a leap forward in interactive content creation. With applications across gaming, education, and simulation, the company is tapping into a massive TAM. Decart’s rapid product velocity and early traction, showcased in a live demo on the show, position it as a potential financial and creative outlier.
Qodo
Code-generating startups and tools are a dime a dozen — but what Qodo wants to do, per TechCrunch, is “as much focused on generating code as on generating the tests and code quality in general.” Put another way the company has a focus on quality code, and deep integration into developer workflows. Killer!
HiddenLayer
There are many ways to make money in the current AI craze. Selling chips? Big business. Building AI models? Big business. Helping companies apply those models? Big business. HiddenLayer is a wager that AI security will be big business as well. Companies know that they need to work to keep ceratin data from AI contexts, but HiddenLayer reckons that the security risks of the AI era go far deeper. Given TWIST's general view that cybersecurity remains an industry far from being 'figured out,' and how much AI folks want to use, seems that HiddenLayer could be sitting on a future goldmine.
LangChain
LangChain offers tools to help companies build applications that use LLMs. It offers both open-source tools to help people 'chain' LLMs together (LangChain), and tools for building AI agents. It's working, too. THe company claimed that it 10x'd revenue in 2024, for example. While major model companies get a lot of press, the companies taking new AI tech and making it work inside of companies are doing quite well, too.
DevRev
The gist behind DevRev is that it wants to bring customer support and product development together. From a very high level, the pitch makes sense. You want to build what your customers need and want, so melding customer support (inputs) and development (outputs) is very reaonable. The proof will be in the pudding of course, but in terms of taking an AI-first approach to rethinking big planks of the modern software business cycle is a welcome effort. Famous founders and big-name backers don't hurt, either.
Rivos
Still under wraps after raising a quarter-billion-dollar Series A, Rivos is building chips and hardware using an open-source framework. The goal is “industry-leading power efficient, high performance, secure server solutions” using “workload-defined hardware.” More when it unveils its plans; for now, it’s richly-backed by big names and tackling a massive, massive market.
Etched
What if you made a chip that was designed just to run transformers, the technology that powers modern LLMs? That’s Etched’s goal: Beat the GPU gang at their own game by going specialized. A lot of money is backing the company. If transformers retain their present-day centrality to the AI game, Etched could be the next Nvidia.
Hyperbolic
Hyperbolic is another AI inference startup, but with a notable twist. It offers inference as a service and raw GPU compute. It is also working on a marketplace where folks with spare GPUs can rent them to others. If the concept scales, we could get off-peak GPU pricing into the market. Anything that makes AI cheaper is potentially massive, so we're bullish on the company (and its market, let's be honest).
Nscale
Neoclouds are the rage because they offer access to GPU clusters that customers might not be able to purchase the ingredients for on their own. Given compute demand for AI model training and inference, there's oodles of demand. And companies like CoreWeave are taking that demand to the bank. So too might Nscale, which is busy expanding its "pipeline of greenfield data centres across Europe and North America from 300MW to 1.3GW," it said when announcing a nine-figure round last year. The company bets that by being vertically integrated it can offer compelling service at a lower cost, and risk profile.
AI models? Hot. AI-powered coding tools? Hot. AI agents? Hot. What if we put all those together? It would look something like Cognition. Known for its ‘Devin’ AI software engineer, Cognition is a bet that AI is going to shake up how humans write computer code, for good. That’s, ahem, a lot of TAM.
Together AI
Building AI models is exceptionally competitive. As is the inference wars. While hyperscaled cloud platforms like what Microsft and Amazon offer are popular, smaller companies are also working on offering inference-as-a-service. Together AI is one such player, with claims of speed and low costs. It's growing quickly, and recently (reportedly) crossed the $100 million ARR threshold. Put Together on the IPO watch list.
Jina AI
Jina AI develops advanced AI models for search functionalities, allowing for more intuitive and efficient data retrieval across various applications. Their technology could have the potential to transform how information is accessed and utilized
Physical Intelligence
Today's AI models can solve huge math problems with ease. But, PI argues, getting an AI robot to fold "a shirt or cleaning up a table requires solving some of the most difficult engineering problems ever conceived." Its solution is to build 'general-purpose robot foundation models' to help bring artificial *physical* intelligence to the market. Backed by Khosla, OpenAI, Sequoia, Thrive, and Lux, a lot of folks are betting that PI can crack the issue. If it can, then we could be in for a future in which we never have to fold clothes again. Which sounds small, but is actually rather profound.
Humanoid robots with a general focus. The company’s robot, Apollo, is pitched by the company for manufacturing, logistics, and retail work environments. Apptronik says that its robot will help with labor crunches and reduce the pain of human employee turnover.
The MenteeBot claims to be an “AI-based robot that you can mentor.” The company mentions both household and commercial use cases for its bot, including notes that it can interpret multi-part instructions via voice.
Humanoid robots that are “general-purpose,” the company claims. Its Phoenix robot uses the company’s in-house “AI control system” called Carbon. Sanctuary, therefore, is a good example of the fusion of AI and hardware that modern robotics companies must master. It’s also Canadian!
We love ADUs, and companies that want to build more of them, more quickly. That puts Samara onto our list alongside Cover, and others.
BOXABL
What if a company shipped you a microhouse or ADU in a compact format that you could expand in an hour, and install in a day? That’s what BOXABL is offering, and it even raised a pile of equity capital from crowdfunding to build out its service.
PaintJet
Industrial-scale painting is not an artisanal task. That makes it a great place for robotics. And what PaintJet has built is just that, in spades.
Partiful
Breakout consumer social? In 2024? Yep. Despite limited capital formation via venture capital, Partiful has been seeing rising search demand, and just won Google’s app of the year award.
Bluesky
Bluesky is a neat company. We don't have many social media plays in the TWiST500, because there are only so many breakout players. Farcaster in crypto, sure, but what else fits the bill. Bluesky does, thanks to a massive ramp in its user base in recent months. Social media ownership is getting more political, which means that the market may suppport more total social plays. Bluesky is said to be fundraising as we add it to the TWiST500, so it seems that at least some VCs agree with our thesis here.
Unrivaled
Women's professional sport has seen a renaissance in the last few years, with the NWSL and WNBA putting up growing attendance and audience metrics. Now, Unrivaled wants to build on the momentum by launching a new, off-season women's basketball league. With tens of millions of dollars raised, it's a legitamate startup. And as anyone who has seen the worth of large professional leagues before knows, when they work, they work.
Kalshi
Kalshi was one of two companies that brought wagering on the world to the public consciousness during the 2024 American elections. Along with Polymarket, Kalshi found a new way to combine investing -- hedging, perhaps -- and gambling. The mix turned out to be very popular. A recent partnership with Robinhood means that the company's distribution is improving, and that it is finding new ways to engage after the conclusion of election season.
Farcaster
Farcaster’s distributed social network is notable for quickly signing up tens of thousands of users, and the company raising $150 million at a $1 billion post-money valuation. Jason pointed out that that company’s valuation/user metric is expensive; but both Jason and Alex agreed that this is a fun binary wager. Either Farcaster builds the next great social network, or it doesn’t. That puts the adventure in venture capital.
Monad Labs
Monad Labs is not a fun new NFT project that is going to spam your X feed. Instead, it’s building “a blockchain protocol that streamlines Ethereum throughput via parallel transaction processing technique.” Or as we might gist that down, it’s working on making critical blockchains faster. Given that blockchains are often slow and expensive, it’s no small problem to tackle.
Stably
Stably offers a stablecoin service to help other companies get their own stable up and running. We have a general view here at TWiST that stablecoins are going to be huge. Ergo, the on-ramps are going to be both busy, and valuable.
Resistant AI
As financial systems digitize, fraudsters adapt. Resistant AI uses cutting-edge technology to safeguard against synthetic fraud and other digital threats. Their tools ensure financial integrity in an era of evolving challenges.
Witness AI
Some companies want to build AI models, tools, and features at a break-neck pace. Some companies, however, need to move a little bit more carefully. For those firms, Witness offers "the guardrails that make AI safe" to quote its own material. Given that we have a thesis that enterprise AI adoption will be a constantly upward tilting curve, companies like Witness could build huge businesses helping the enterprise get its AI shop in order. And with just $27.5M raised, Witness is no OpenAI or Figma in being fully sorted out. We're watching this one closely.
LynxTech
AI to combat fin fraudFinancial fraud is a trillion-dollar problem, and LynxTech’s AI solutions are here to fight back. With real-time fraud detection and adaptive learning systems, LynxTech is tackling one of the most pressing issues in the financial sector, making it a clear standout.
Castelion
Defense-tech startup, has raised $100 million to develop hypersonic missile systems intended for the U.S. military. The company plans to expand its manufacturing facilities in California and Texas and aims for its first hypersonic test flight this summer, with operational readiness expected by 2027
Alloy Automation
From Alex in the newsletter: "Another company I’ve had my eye on for a long time, Alloy started as a business promising ”complex automation made easy, and with no code.” Since then it’s developed an ecommerce focus, and most recently, moved upmarket. Often when we add a company to the TWiST500, we have revenue growth figures to benchmark against. Not so in this case, but having watched the company and its products mature, I’m taking a flyer on them here."
Aklymi
Turning unstructured data into actionable insights is a massive challenge for finance professionals. Alkymi’s vertical AI solution makes it easy to extract, analyze, and act on data, setting them apart in a rapidly growing niche.
PermitFlow
A great example of vertical SaaS for an industry, PermitFlow is taking on a key sticking point in construction — permitting — and turning it into tuned software.
Synctera
Banking-as-a-Service has seen its share of challenges, but Synctera is proving there’s room for innovation. By connecting banks with fintechs, Synctera simplifies integration and empowers financial innovation, making it a standout in the sector.
Workpay
Workpay recently raised its largest round to date, some $5 million. But what’s more impressive is what it has managed with a very modest capital base. The African-focused HR tech company now has over 1,000 customers in 20 countries, and is on track to double in size this year. A few more of those and we could be looking at another African tech IPO.
Cuby Technologies
While many of the constructiontech startups that we picked for the TWiST500 are using robots to build, Cuby has built robots that build. Micro factories are the name of the game here, which are highly-automated to boot. This is a startup with a big vision making big bets.
Xona Space Systems
There are a number of GPS-like systems in the world. Four or five, depending on how you want to count. And they are owned by nation-states or blocs. Enter Xona, which wants to build one that is super-accurate and privately owned. It will feature 258 satellites when complete, and is one hell of a vision. We suspect that the company will require more capital, so keep an eye out for that.
OrbitFab
Imagine you find yourself in orbit, but your tank is running low. What do you do? Look for a filling station, of course. That's what OrbitFab hopes, at least. The company is building in-space refueling tech for orbital devices. This includes building a phsyical interface to accept in-orbit fuel, and softawre to coordinate the satellites in question. Given that we expect the in-orbit economy to greatly expand in the coming decades, OrbitFab's TAM should only expand and expand.
Turion Space
Want to launch a satellite but don't want to design it yourself, or build the software required to run it? Great news, Turion Space wants to do all that hard stuff for you. The company is a hybrid bet on hard space tech (satellites, moving them about) and soft space tech (robust software to manage in-orbit operations.) The company is doing so well that it landed a $32.6 million contract with the DoD for "multi-payload satellites and real-time command and control." Let's see how those work out.
Starfish space
SATELLITE ECONOMY, Y'ALL. Starfish Space is innovating in the satellite economy by developing technology for in-orbit servicing and debris management. With the growing reliance on satellite infrastructure for communication, navigation, and observation, Starfish is tackling critical challenges in orbital sustainability. Its strategic focus on foundational satellite service could signal long-term relevance in the space industry.
Digantara
Digantara is not a household space name. But the company's space material tracking technology has a number of interesting applications -- defense, insurance, commercial, etc -- and it has joined the United States Space Forces’s Prime Fusion (Space RCO) Pilot Accelerator along with Andruil. While launch technologies (SapceX, Blue Origin, etc) get a lot of press, keeping things safe once we get them to space is a big deal as well.
Whisper Aero
Whisper Aero is advancing quiet propulsion technology and possibly redefine noise standards and coulld be big for eVTOLs, drones, and aviation. With increasing demand for sustainable and efficient aerospace solutions, Whisper Aero’s unique approach addresses both environmental concerns and operational efficiency. Early market adoption and rising partnerships signal potential for rapid growth and a significant long-term impact
53
Harvey
Quickly growing vertical AI company with a focus on the legal profession. Given that there is a lot of humdrum paperwork involved in that field, it’s not hard to guess that Harvey is scaling quickly.
Bland AI
Someone is going to win this space... and Bland AI just raised 65M series B from Scale Venture Partners, Upfront Ventures, Pioneer Fund, Emergence Capital and Y Combinator. Bland AI is the infrastructure for building AI phone calling applications at scale. The Bland AI Phone Calling Platform allows enterprises to securely/safely build, test, and deploy their own AI phone calling agents.
Hippocratic AI
Hippocratic AI just raised a $141M Series B round led by Kleiner Perkins this January (2025). The company is developing healthcare-focused large language models designed to enhance provider workflows and improve patient outcomes. Its focus on safety, accuracy, and empathy addresses critical gaps in the integration of AI into healthcare. The company’s alignment with rising healthcare demand and its mission-driven approach make it a strong candidate for long-term success.
Poolside
Developers love AI coding assistants. Poolside’s massive new raise gives it enough cash to keep building its own models, and perhaps roll up some smaller players as this busy market will eventually consolidate.
Credo AI
Similar in some ways to fellow TWIST500 company HiddenLayer, Credo AI is building software that works in AI governance. This includes both looking at AI risks, policy, and use inside of an organization. Akin to how much SaaS companies use, it is not hard to infer a future in which enterprise orgs have lots of AI models doing different work. So, a unified viewpoint into those models, and how they are being used makes good sense. Given our bullish view on AI and cybersecurity, Credo is an easy add to the TWiST 500.
Replit
Replit's software can one-shot application and website building using AI agents. It's become a popular tool for prototyping work, to pick an example, as folks can get off of white boards super quick. There are many companies working along similar lines, but none have reached Replit's level of virality and brand.
Weaviate
Weaviate makes open source vector database software. It's a bit hard to explain vectors, vector search, and vector databases here, but let it suffice to say that vectors are critical tech in the AI era -- and Weaviate's open-source + services model is incredibly cool. And the company was deep into the vector game before ChatGPT came out, which means that it has a few years' head start compared to rivals that might have recognized the importance of vectors only after OpenAI changed the world.
Esperanto Technologies
So what if you want to run AI models, but don't want to use CPUs or GPUs? Good news! Esperanto has another option for you: "thousands of high-performance, low power RISC-V cores" that it will orchestrate for you! Even better, Esperanto has its own 'ET-SoC-1 inference chip' that you can scale up for all your inference needs. The company is a very interesting bet on a different sort of AI processing future. And with Esperanto also working on Primo, a "advanced AI software platform specifically designed to optimize the inference of generative AI models" it seems that on the efficiency front, the AI market has a real contender.
Kneron
Kneron is another startup focused on building chips for AI workloads. In Kneron's case, that means "AI SoC processors that offer the ideal balance of performance, power saving, and cost for hardware makers that are looking to benefit from on-device edge AI," in its own words. Given the scale of AI computing demands in the future, no single provider is going to own the market. So, we expect several winners. Kneron's solid chip lineup and software work are impressive.
Axelera AI
With a focus on computer vision workloads, Axelera AI's system should allow for inference at the edge with lower cost/power draw. Like many similar startups in the AI hardware/software space, it's hard to say at this juncture how much market share that Axelera will manage to accumulate, but it's certainly taking a big swing at a future market that we here at TWiST expect to be huge.
Replicate
Replicate hosts open-source AI models, and rents compute time to folks who want to use them. It's a clear bet on open-source AI owning a large chunk of the AI market long-term, which we share. It also offers fine-tuning, and other neat services that set it apart from its peers. All that and an impressive investor list make it one we're bullish about.
Rebellions
Rebellions was on our radar before it merged with Sapeon, another AI chip concern that was itself spun out of SK. But now with nine-figures of capital, greater local resources, and a huge market to sell into, Rebellions is an obvious addition to the list.
Enfabrica
Enfabrica is the picks and shovels game when it comes to AI. Its NIC hardware can cut down on GPU data latency, which makes AI training more hardware-efficient. If AI proceeds as expected, it could mint a fortune in the process.
xAI
Elon’s AI company has raised billions and is going for the crown. It’s easily one of the most interesting startups in the market today, making its inclusion in the TWIST500 a simple matter.
Mistral
There are several global AI hubs. The United States. China. And, perhaps, Europe. Mistral is a bet that a European startup can build world class AI models, and a secondary wager that Europe (the EU, more or less) will want or demand a local champion. Given the scale of the EU economy (top three globally), that's not a bad play. And Mistral has built tech that has, at times, pushed the envelope.
Cursor (Anysphere)
Of all the AI coding tools, we hear the most about Cursor (made by Anysphere). And with its recent Series A (TechCrunch broke the news) backed by a16z and others, it has some high-profile supporters. Mix in reports that the company’s revenue has scaled from $4 million annually to $4 million monthly, and we’re looking at a very interesting IPO candidate.
Pika
AI agents may be all the rage in 2025, but there's still a huge AI market out there for other use cases. One of which is video generation, which Pika has a neat twist on. Bring your own IP (photos) and Pika will help you use them in AI generated clips. Venture investors of note have put serious dollars into the company. Provided that consumer AI demand remains hot, and people prefer visuals to words, Pika could be chasing a simply massive TAM with a bank vault full of dollars to build its vision. Not a bad combo.
Cobot
Collaborative robots (cobots) that use LLMs to handle decisions. The company writes that it believes in “a future where robots are a trusted extension of your surroundings.” Notably, its cobots are still under wraps, so we don’t know what they will look like. Yet.
Figure
Figure has raised a mint for its humanoid robots from both venture firms and corporate backers. It’s working on “general purpose humanoids that make a positive impact on humanity and create a better life for future generations.” The company’s FIGURE 01 robot blends a human-styled robot chassis with AI to help it perform a wider array of tasks.
1X Technologies
1X is building a humanoid robot that can help with various tasks. It's worth noting that 1X pitches its robot on its website as more personal than industrial. And while Figure employs electric power in its robot, 1X uses hydraulics.
Agility Robotics
Agility claims that in June of this year, one of its robots worked “a full shift in a commercial setting — not a test, proof of concept, or demo.” Agility’s robots seem well-suited to warehouse settings, and less focused on personal use.
The Browser Company
TWiST has touched on browsers extensively, thanks to Google’s inability to get sued by the government. But what makes TBC interesting is not merely that it is building a new browser, but that its new project — called Dia — plans to do a lot more. It’s far beyond time for a new way to approach the internet.
CompanyCam
Somewhat akin to OpenSpace, CompanyCam has built a service to take, collect, and lever images taken on work sites.
Icon
Robots building buildings? What’s not to love. Construction is still too complex and expensive today, so startups like Icon have our attention.
Winnie
Back to back Inc 5000 inclusions showing massive growth into a huge TAM.
Perplexity
Fast product cadence? Check. Growing search volume and implied share? Check. Pro service that is already monetizing? Check. Vertical venture capital accretion? Check. An obvious TWiST500 entrant if there ever was one.
Suno
AI music generating startups will either prove to be massive consumer hits; or they might wind up killed by copyright challenges. Until we know their fate in court, Suno and its siblings are startups that could become huge financial winners.
Substack
Substack is an odd entry in the TWiST500 in that it seems to have reached the end of its venture capital days early. At the same time, as an indie company it’s iterating quickly and expanding its revenue base. It could still become a massive win for its backers, even if they seem to have opted out of putting more capital into the business.
Polymarket
Polymarket -- and Kalshi -- have shown that the market for wagering on real-world events is large and able to survive a post-election interregnum. Both companies are on the TWiST500 because their model is lucrative, the potential TAM infinite, and the underlying tech interetsing. Not to mention Polymarket revenue should be high-margin, right?
Dune Analytics
Dune is our favorite source of hard truths from the blockchains. Want to know how a project or niche is performing? Dune. Its easy interface, deep datasets, and public dashboards mean that Dune is critical to understanding Web3. And since crypto is back, well, Dune is set to reap the rewards of surviving the last crypto winter.
Moonpay
One of the standout crypto companies in the market today. Moonpay helps consumers and businesses get money into and from digital assets. Crypto, a seemingly impossible to kill project, needs high-quality on and off ramps. Moonpay fits the bill. And with quick product cadence and crypto back in fashion, it's well situated to grow like hell in the coming quarters.
Story (PIP Labs)
We’re fans of startups that are working to close the AI-IP gap as it relates to data. So, when Story broke into the news cycle we took note. An $80 million wager into the company is not something to take lightly.
Hawk AI
Compliance and fraud prevention are mission-critical for financial institutions, and Hawk AI delivers. Their AI-driven surveillance system monitors transactions in real-time, helping banks reduce false positives and prevent financial crime. A growing need for security makes Hawk AI a standout.
Saronic
The TWiST crew have been fascinated by drones lately. Not merely because they are a geopolitical football, but also because they are taking a larger role in warmaking, surveillance, and general commerce. Saronic is a drone boat company, and one that has raised a near quarter billion dollars. Most drone tech is airborne, but startups like Vatn Systems have helped us sharpen our understanding of the importance of drones in the water. Saronic's products could be a hit in the South China Sea, we reckon.
Regent
While the American Dynamism concept is often cast in defense lighting, not all companies that we think fit the thesis are building weapons. Regent is one such company, focusing its efforts on electric skyplanes for coastal transport. Boom is great, but someetimes you don't need to go supersonic -- you just want to skip the airport and get from, say, Providence to New York City. Which should be possible in the future, as Regent is based in Rhode Island.
Last Energy
During E2013 we added two nuclear power startups to the TWiST500, noting that three were already public. The massive demand for new power to keep AI datacenters humming is creating a fertile market for companies like Last Energy,
Hydrostor
Energy storage is one of the most exciting startup sectors today. And while many folks are working on improving battery tech, Hydrostor wants to use compressed air storage. It’s also funded to the point that it has the cash needed to pull off its vision; given the need for an all-of-the-above energy policy, we dig it.
Altris
Venture-backed Altris is one of two sodium-ion battery startups that we added to the TWiST500. Both are wagers that the mass-storage of energy that the world needs as it pivots to more renewable energy sources won’t rest on simply building more, or bigger lithium-ion batteries. A big wager, but one with even larger potential returns.
Commonwealth Fusion
QI Tech
Hailing from Brazil, QI Tech is a banking-as-a-service provider. While some BaaS players have struggled recently in the United States, the model still has legs. And with $200 million raised in 2023, QI Tech has the funds to tackle several geographies.
Coast
Fintech that double-tapped funding rounds in 2024. It’s backers speak incredibly highly of it; it’s also a vertical fintech play, showing how that model can scale well even with well-funded horizontal competition.
Finom
Lots of software companies want to sell to the largest possible customers. Larger accounts, and lower churn make enterprise sales very attractive. Some startups, however, go after the smaller end of the market: SMBs. That's who Finom serves. The Dutch startup offers financial software for solo-entrepreneurs and other, micro-enterprises like freelancers. SMB-powered exits like Bill.com make it plain that you can get big selling small. We're super bullish on Finom thanks to the >85,000 businesses that use its service (that figure is now nearly a year old, so it's likely now much larger).
Neko Health
Neko Health is rethinking preventive healthcare with its AI-driven, non-invasive medical scanning technology. Co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek, the company aims to shift healthcare from reactive treatment to early detection and continuous monitoring. Backed by top-tier investors like Lakestar, Atomico, and Lightspeed, Neko recently secured $260M in Series B funding to scale its vision. With a focus on affordability and accessibility, Neko Health is positioned to redefine how routine health assessments are conducted, potentially reshaping the future of preventive medicine.
Nym
What is AI good at? Taking over remote work. What is a huge market that is complicated and requires expensive humans? Medical coding. Put the two together and you get Nym.
Cover
Backyard ADUs have a shot at boosting housing stock and density without major code changes. In short, this model could be simply massive.
Alice & Bob
Google recently made waves by announcing a breakthrough in its quantum computing work thanks to its 'Willow' chip which showed that more qubits led to a reduction in errors. Alice & Bob, in contrast, want to design "better" qubits.With 100 million Euros recently added to its coffers, our quantum future has multiple, well-funded and viable paths to fruition. It may be a market with multiple winners, and there's a lot of capital betting that the team at Alice & Bob will the ones to crack it.
Mighty Buildings
Not all construction tech startups are only focused on robots and faster building. Mighty brings a sustainability angle to the space that we like.
Dusty Robotics
The use of Roomba-style robots to mark construction sites accurately and quickly is a great concept, and one that Dusty Robotics appears to have cracked. Given how much the world builds, it could have a massive market to sell into.
Albedo Space
Impulse Space
One of the hardest challenges in the world -- literally -- is getting out of our local gravity well. But once you can get into at least low-Earth orbit (LEO), what if you want to reach a higher orbit? With LEO insertion becoming more and more affordable, Impulse bets that what the space market needs is an in-space method of moving items from low, to higher orbits. It's hard to understate how cool this company is. Mix in nine-figures of private capital, and a mission that is literally out amongst the stars, and we're in love.
Sierra Space
Sierra Space wants to build space planes, in-orbit habitats for humans, and more. The company's vision and product lineup is incredibly exciting. And its progress is, too. Recently as of the time of its addition to the TWiST500, Sierra Space passed another milestone for its reusable space plane in collaboration with NASA. We love to see it.
Varda
Varda's idea is simple: do cool science in space, and then bring the results back down to Earth. With one successful mission under its belt, the company launched its second in mid-January 2025. The launch of its "second orbital processing and reentry capsule" was a success. We're stoked to see what the reuslts are of the second mission -- but what's clear is that Varda is doing commercial science in space, and that's goddamn exciting.
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Codeium
Apart from its massive fundraising run, Codeium is part of a cohort of startups applying AI to the work of slinging code. The market for this service is huge. Developers are expensive; companies want to spend less money; you can imagine the sales cycle here.
Magic
Akin to Codeium, Magic is an AI-powered coding assistive service. We’re bullish on the category as a whole, thanks to its massive TAM and proven business results (GitHub Copilot). It’s not clear precisely which startup will emerge the winner here, or if multiple winners will be found, but Magic could walk away with a large cut of a huge market.
PolyAI
Chainguard
An issue that needs to be better solved is cybersecurity. Or perhaps a better way to say that would be: We need to better prevent attack on our critical digital surfaces. There are many ways to do that. CrowdStrike has endpoint security on lock, for example. Chainguard is taking an interesting approach. It offers "minimal, hardened container images" of open source projects that are rebuilt constantly with security fixes. The idea is that if you need to use open source software -- and who doesn't OSS, come on -- you want the most recent, most efficient, smallest, and safest images to run, right? It's a super cool idea.
ElevenLabs
Hailo
It seems increasingly clear that we're going to have a market featuring different types of processors used for different types of AI workload. Hailo is building AI chips for the 'edge,' industry parlance devices that exist out in the field. That means AI chips for security, automation, automotive and the like. The work that Hailo is doing won't get the same press as, say, an Nvidia keynote, but could be nearly as important. And lucrative.
Coreweave
Coreweave is a massively-backed GPU/CPU cloud startup that is taking on giants. Of course, the AI rush is bolstering GPU demand, but to see a startup raise so much equity and debt so quickly makes us curious how fast its revenues must also be scaling.
Tenstorrent
On our radar thanks to a recent $100 million round, Tenstorrent is building compute for AI models, with a very neat modular setup that allows it to scale up capacity for customers.
Celestial AI
Everyone talks about GPUs, and being ‘compute poor,’ but what if those issues were not what is holding back larger and better AI model creation? Enter the ‘memory wall,’ which Celestial AI thinks that it has the hardware to fix.
Lightning AI
Building scalable AI applications is hard, but Lightning AI makes it easy. Their tools enable developers to deploy powerful AI systems faster and more efficiently, giving them a key role in shaping the AI-driven future.
Sakana AI
A Japanese AI company building Japanese-language LLMs, and also ways to train LLMs more cheaply. A regional twist on the OpenAI model, and one that we think is worth considering.
Wayve
With a $1 billion investment from tech giants for its self-driving technology, the London-based startup is an obvious addition to our list. Of course, competing with Waymo and others is no small challenge.
AI-driven robotic microfactories. It’s a fascinating company, even if it’s not building humanoids — yet, at least. With , it’s incredibly well-backed by names including Nvidia, Microsoft, Lux Capital, and BMW.
Kojo
Buying and managing construction materials and equipment is not the sort of thing you expect most startups to care about. Which is precisely why venture-backed Kojo caught our eye. The TAM here is enormous, which means that Kojo should have endless room to grow.
Plant Prefab
Prefab construction took a hit when Katerra folded. But the model could have legs with a healthy dose of automation. Plant Prefab is a bet that that wager will come good.
Riverside
Riverside sits at the intersection of podcasting, and AI. That means it deals with audio and video, editing, and creator tooling. The company’s impressive fundraising journey implies quick revenue growth. Its customer list is deep, and if AI can make it easier/faster/cheaper to make podcasts, there’s going to be a big market for the software in question. Riverside could become simply huge. It doesn’t hurt that the company has a deal with Spotify, and TechCrunch reports that while Riverside is “not currently profitable [it] aims to achieve that goal by the end of 2026.”
Medium
Medium has become a consumer subscription juggernaut, with more than one million paying subscribers. As that number scales, Medium will climb closer to the $100 million ARR mark and therefore IPO viability. Despite many pivots, Medium seems to have found its forever-model, and that’s good news for its backers and workers alike.
Cyera
Another cybersecurity company for the list. They may form their own nexus of startups, frankly. Which given how well some cybersecurity companies are performing on the public markets would make good sense. That Cyera works with “Data Security Posture Management,” or the who can access which data question which has a role to play in how companies handle internal data for AI use, makes it all the more interesting.
Picus Security
Along with its $45M Series C, Picus is making waves in the cybersecurity space by integrating with up to 80 major security tools and delighting over 500 enterprise customers (including giants like Mastercard and Visa). Across all clients, it’s simulated a combined 1 billion cyberattacks.
Halcyon
Ransomware is a menace. But one that we’re going to live with for a while. In part due to the power of cryptocurrency, which is a popular demand from hackers who hold companies’ data and operations hostage. Mix in a $100M round and it seems that if anyone is going to mint cash preventing breaches of this nature, it’ll be Halcyon.
Truveta
From Alex in the newsletter: "Truveta is a weird bird. I’ve known about it since it was small as it is run by former Microsoft exec Terry Myerson and I was once a Redmond beat reporter. Since its early days, the Truveta model of acquiring health datasets to provide “regulatory-grade” electronic health record data for researching was intriguing. But how well would the company navigate the famously fraught healthcare market? As it turns out, very well! The company’s latest $320 million round makes that much clear. Why add it to the TWiST500? Because I, a silly man, did not until recently realize that in the AI era, having as much data as Truveta wants to imbibe and provide could provide a rock-solid foundation for a host of insanely neat products. Talk about the market coming to you!"
Helsing
Recent conflicts have shown that warfare is becoming increasingly drone-born, and with Ukraine still fighting off an invasion, there’s — unfortunately — current and future demand for military-ready drone tech. Mix in rising defense budgets in Europe, and you can’t really imagine a more fertile time for an EU-based company like Helsing. Hence, onto the list, it goes.
X- Energy
During E2013 we added two nuclear power startups to the TWiST500, noting that three were already public. The massive demand for new power to keep AI datacenters humming is creating a fertile market for companies like X-Energy.
Tokamak Energy
Unlike Zap Energy -- another TWiST500 fusion entrant -- Tokamak is using a well-known geometry and magnets for plasma control. What sets it apart from the market? It's latest nine-figure round doesn't hurt, but the company's also earned the praise -- and support -- of the UK government.
Writer
If you thought that the AI funding wave had crested, you were wrong. Writer’s new round values the genAI startup at $1.9 billion. Writer is not, however, another text generator. Instead, it’s focused on helping customers build AI apps. And even more notably, it is building its own family of large language models. TechCrunch reports that the company is also working on AI agents, adding another startup to the list of those pursuing agentic AI tooling for corporate customers.
Bilt
Fascinating consumer fintech company with a multi-billion dollar valuation, and a big partnership with Wells Fargo that has caught the industry’s attention.
Finix
Starting life as a payment infra company that evolved into a payments provider to boot, Finix has had a slightly odd-feeling trajectory as a startup. But what matters today is that it’s rocking and rolling and looks set to lay claim to at least a few hundred bips of the digital payments market; that’s a massive startup outcome brewing if we’ve ever seen one.
MMI
Let’s combine these two because they’re both tackling surgical robotics in big ways. MMI focuses on precision tools for microsurgeries—think surgeries so delicate that robots are literally more capable than humans. Capstan, meanwhile, is all about less invasive heart surgeries, using robotics to replace open-heart procedures. Both companies raised $110M Series C rounds this year, showing just how much investors believe in their tech. The future of surgery is here, and these two are leading the way.
Capstan Medical
Let’s combine these two because they’re both tackling surgical robotics in big ways. MMI focuses on precision tools for microsurgeries—think surgeries so delicate that robots are literally more capable than humans. Capstan, meanwhile, is all about less invasive heart surgeries, using robotics to replace open-heart procedures. Both companies raised $110M Series C rounds this year, showing just how much investors believe in their tech. The future of surgery is here, and these two are leading the way.
Bear Robotics
Ever been served by a robot? If not, you might soon be. Bear Robotics builds autonomous indoor robots designed to assist staff in restaurants, senior care facilities, and beyond. Their “Servi” robots handle repetitive tasks like delivering food and clearing tables, letting human employees focus on the customer experience. With a labor shortage continuing to challenge service industries, Bear’s robots are stepping in to fill the gap. Practical, efficient, and already rolling out globally.
Stoke Space
A good way to ensure that the price of getting stuff to space keeps falling is to ensure that there's ample, competent companies competing to take stuff to space. That's why, despite SpaceX's success, Stoke Space's approach to "100 reusable" rockets is interesting. Are we certain that Stoke's Nova rockets are the future. No. But it has a shot. The company's recent $260 million funding round and side business helping other companies build complex machinery don't hurt, either.
Boom
The company has a real shot at bringing faster-than-sound travel back into the market.
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SambaNova
SambaNova is building RDUs -- chips designed to handle multi-model setups -- and offering inference as a service. Its combination of AI software and hardware is compelling given its claims performance. And with the company pushing on agnetic AI, it may have built the right technology stack for the next (upcoming? current?) AI era. The company's huge capital backing doesn't hurt, either. It's too early to know if the $1B+ that has been invested into SambaNova will pay out, but in terms of big/bold bets that are not Nvidia or OpenAI, it's a huge one.
Mythic
How does GPU-level AI compute for 1% of the power draw? That's the pitch that Mythic makes with its Mythic Analog Compute Engine (ACE) system. Like a few other TWiST500 companies, the company wants to make it less expensive to run AI models. That’s going to be a big, big market.
Groq
Instead of using GPUs for AI inference, how about purpose-built Langauge Process Units, or LPUs? That's Groq's bet. It's another inference provider, but one that is leaning on its own hardware. Given how much AI inference work that needs doing, it's hard to not pretty excited by what Groq is cooking up. Even more, the company swapped from selling hardware to selling inference-as-a-service. According to its investors, that led to an explosion of demand. That's just what we're looking for.
Anthropic
One of the leading AI model companies that has raised billions, Anthropic is challenging OpenAI in the closed-source AI game. It’s a massive, richly-valued private-market company that, if it does eventually IPO, will drive headlines for weeks and months. And returns, potentially, for years.
Synthesia
Some AI video generating companies want to help you become the next great Hollywood director. Synthesia, in contrast, wants to build AI humans in video contexts that companies can use to chat with users, customers, and employees. We've tested the tool here at TWiST for fun, and found it to be pretty good thus far. Investors think that Synthesia is going to be huge -- putting $180 million more into the company to start the year. That's a haul, and we presume implies quick revenue growth in 2024. Just the sort of company we want to highlight.
Hugging Face
GitHub and GitLab became huge companies because they earned material developer mindshare while providing a combination of developer tooling, sharing, and community. That’s what HF is, but for the AI world. We’ve been fans for a while, but with the AI wave hardly slowing down it’s clear that HF is well-set for an outcome that should, provided all goes as we expect, drive more than a little DPI.
OpenSpace
OpenSpace has built a hardware system to capture images of worksites, and software to process and turn those images into useful data. It has raised a boatload of capital for the work, which should have potential sales opportunities in any market where things are built. Which is to say, all markets.
Huntress
Fresh off a $150 million raise, Huntress’s focus on cybersecurity for SMBs is interesting. SMBs are famously not as good of customers as enterprise clients. But that also means that they can be underserved. And they certainly need cyberprotection.
Abnormal Security
Abnormal wants to use AI to bolster cybersecurity of a system that we all use day in, day out: Email. The mix is working, with Abnormal crossing the $100M ARR mark in August 2023, and $200 million ARR in August 2024. Presuming that Abnormal can reach $300-$400M ARR in 2025, the company's $5.1 billion valuation starts to look tasty. And IPO-ready.
Island
Island is an interesting company that operates mostly out of sight of the startup game. Why? Because it’s building enterprise browser tech. Boring? Yes. Potentially hugely lucrative? Also yep. Companies are dealing with too many cybersecurity issues; more protection is going to have a market. And thanks to both recent funding and reports of quickly growing revenue, Island may have created its own market, charging for tech that is usually free. That’s impressive.
AI infrastructure is projected to see over the next decade, the race is on to solve critical bottlenecks in data transfer. Ayar Labs is solving the problem by using light instead of electricity to transfer data faster and more efficiently.
Fervo Energy
While Sam Altman is bullish on fusion in the near-term, and lots of folks are betting that nuclear power is about to return to form -- Fervo is betting that we just need to go deeper. Into the Earth. Namely to mine its heat. Yes, geothermal power has its own startup champion, and it's a super cool company. Given that TWiST has a 'all of the above' energy thesis, it's an easy add.
Zap Energy
The need for big new power inputs to the global grid to power our collective AI future is well-known. Solutions offered are myriad. Solar and batteries, nuclear, even fusion. But that last category -- fusion -- is tricky, and not yet commercially viable; indeed, only a few experiements have shown net-positive energy output. But Zap's vision could turn fusion into something simpler, and smaller. If its vision for magnet-free fusion works out, the company could not only solve our species-level energy crisis, but do so in a manner that brings the power right to where its needed thanks to modular design. A bet, but one that could pay off hugely.
Zap Energy
Someone is going to sort out fusion. We've added a few fusion startups to the TWiST500, including Helion and Tokamak Energy. But of all the fusion companies we're tracking, none may be as wild as Zap. Why? Zap wants to build fusion reactors without magnets. Even more, it wants to build modular fusion reactors sans magnets. If Zap's vision is commercially viable in time, it could unlock not merely unlimited energy, but unlimited portable energy. Which is wild.,
Cohere
Cohere is less flashy than many foundation model companies. Its enterprise focus is likely why — but a slightly lower profile is not slowing the Canadian LLM unicorn down. With a reported $13 million run rate at the end of 2023 and $35 million by March of 2024, it’s clearly found its in-market footing. Mix in another huge funding round, and the $5.5 billion startup is heading for an IPO in the next few years.
Brex
Brex’s comeback after a period of slowing growth and high burn is something to behold. The company’s prior growth and valuation marks looked first like accomplishments, later burdens, and are now once again notes in its favor. Brex is large, less unprofitable, and once again expanding. We expect an IPO here.
Ramp
Ramp’s rise as a Brex also-ran to one of the fastest growing fintech unicorns that we can recall is impressive. Ramp grew so fast it seemed to trip up is older rival. But what matters in startup-land is growth, not the earliest founding date. Ramp’s quick product cadence and ability to sell into larger companies means it’s an exit to expect. We’re counting down.
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Bytedance
Apart from owning TikTok, Bytedance is a massive player in the Chinese internet economy. It's apps are popular the world around, and it is also making waves in AI. No matter what you think of China-US bickering for global technology domination, Bytedance is one of the most successful private-market tech companies in the world. Period,.
Weka
Sure, the company recently raised $140 million in a Series E, but more importantly by working with companies that have lots of data and a hybrid compute setup, Weka should be well-placed for the current AI boom.
Cribl
Rapid compound annual growth, rock-solid net dollar retention, a massive up round in the 2024 late-stage market make Cribl a standout IPO contender.
Ironclad
Legal workflows are ripe for disruption, and Ironclad is leading the charge. Their AI-powered platform helps enterprises manage contracts and legal processes at scale, saving time and reducing risk. With enterprises embracing digital transformation, Ironclad is poised to redefine legal operations.