Over 220 startups who have been financing for three years, and half of the Unicorn companies are devastating

Over 220 startups who have been financing for three years, and half of the Unicorn companies are devastating.

As a result of the development of AI boom, startups that were established before the growth of the generated AI boom have declined. According to the survey, half of the startups that had previously grown rapidly dropped their ratings after the launch of ChatGPT.

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https://pitchbook.com/news/clecles/unicorn-startups-list-trends

AI crushes startup

https://thewebtweb.com/news/ai-startup-valuations-pre-chatgpt-fallen-unicorns

AI is a startup company

https://www.c.c.com/2026/06.ai-startup-valuations-pre-chatgpt.html

PitchBook, a financial investigator, has published data on all Unicorn companies that have been created since 2016. Unicorn is a company that refers to a company with a rating of more than $10 billion (approximately $16 billion) and less than 10 years since its establishment. If the company is no longer a venture support company by listing or acquisition, or if the value is less than $10 billion due to business suspension or down-round, etc., it is not considered as Unicorn.

As of February 2, 2026, there are 1590 active unicorn companies in the world.

However, 220 startups who completed the final financing before the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 were less than $10 billion, and no longer considered a Unicorn company.

According to PitchBook, the value of a company that was funded in 2022 fell by 52% on average, and 68% fell by a company that was funded in 2021. About 75 Unicorn companies were out of service.

The funds invested in these companies are turned into an AI company. The venture investor who invested in SaaS companies with a growth rate of 40% per year has invested in AI native companies with a growth rate of 200% at the time of the article creation, while the growth rate of traditional SaaS companies has increased by 94% compared to the previous year.

As the emergence of generated AI, software can be built by non-professionals, the value of the former software group decreased, and companies that develop these software have lost funds from virtually venture capital due to overestimated corporate value and outdated technology, and the more profitable they can be listed on the stock market.

As a technology and financial expert, Arena Maria Stan says, “There may be companies that survive by actively transforming into an AI field, but this transformation requires both excellent engineers and funds. The scale of this issue is historically unusual, and the value of the startup company was lowered, such as dot com bubble collapse, interest rate shock in 2022, but there was no technological innovation that made the core business outdated at the same time. “The winners of the AI era have created revenues that were previously unthinkable.”

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