List of 160+ AI Startups with Funding and Category
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A curated GitHub list of 160+ AI startups with funding details and categories, aimed at software engineers job hunting in the AI era.
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vinitshahdeo/awesome-ai-startups-hiring
Source: https://github.com/vinitshahdeo/awesome-ai-startups-hiring
AI-First Startups Hiring in 2026: 160+ Funded Companies with Funding and Category
A curated list of 160+ AI-first startups across agent infrastructure, LLM inference, AI dev tools, data & retrieval infra, AI security, voice, and AI-fintech — with category and latest funding. Curated for software engineers job-hunting in the AI era. Find well-funded AI companies to apply to.
Funding data is mined using AI, not independently re-verified; spot-check before relying on it.
🚀 How to Use This Resource
-
Shoot Your Shot: Browse the list, find the teams building tech that excites you, and head straight to their
/careerspages to apply. If you want to stand out, take a leap and cold-email the founders directly. -
Pick the Right Startup: Not all AI companies are built the same. Use this evaluation framework to assess their tech stack, funding reality, and engineering culture before making your move.
-
Ace the Interview: Once you land a conversation, refer to this guide to prepare for Hiring Manager (HM) rounds so you can navigate the technical and cultural questions with confidence.
📋 List of AI Startups
Last updated: 2026-08-10
If you find this helpful, please star or watch this repo as I continuously update it with the community’s help. PRs are always welcome—let’s contribute to expand this list for everyone!
| # | Company | Category | Funding Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Simplismart | AI infrastructure / LLM inference / MLOps | ~9M Series B in progress (Dallas Venture Capital lead, per regulatory filings); Nvidia reported in talks to lead a ~20M round (May 2026); prior $7M Series A (Oct 2024, Accel) · Aug 2026 |
| 2 | Braintrust | AI developer tools / LLM evals & observability | $80M Series B · February 2026 · valuation $800M post-money · lead: Iconiq |
| 3 | Taktile | AI fintech / agentic decisioning / enterprise AI | $110M Series C · June 2026 · lead: Goldman Sachs Alternatives |
| 4 | Emergent | AI agents / AI coding / applied AI | $130M Series C (2026, India 3rd AI unicorn); prior $70M Series B (Jan 2026, SoftBank/Khosla); 23M Series A (Sept 2025) · valuation Unicorn (>1B) · lead: SoftBank Vision Fund 2 |
| 5 | Sarvam AI | AI research infrastructure / LLMs / enterprise AI | $234M Series B (first close of $300M round); prior $41M Series A (Dec 2023) · June 2026 · valuation $1.5B (unicorn) · lead: HCLTech |
| 6 | LinqAlpha | AI fintech / AI agents / financial research | $22M Series A · July 2, 2026 · lead: AVP |
| 7 | Qdrant | AI data infrastructure / vector search | $50M Series B · March 12, 2026 · lead: AVP |
| 8 | AIsa | AI fintech / payments rail for agents | Seed/Series A · July 2026 |
| 9 | Baseten | AI infrastructure / model inference & serving | ~$1.5B raise (2026); prior $300M Series E; total 327M+ · valuation ~13B · lead: IVP |
| 10 | Chroma | AI data infrastructure / vector database | $18M seed (2023) + later · 2023-2026 |
| 11 | LanceDB | AI data infrastructure / multimodal vector DB | Seed/Series A · 2026 |
| 12 | Langfuse | AI developer tools / LLM observability (OSS) | Seed/Series A · lead: Y Combinator (accelerator) |
| 13 | Modal | AI infrastructure / serverless GPU | ~$300M Series C; prior 87M Series B (Sept 2025) · 2026 · valuation ~4.65B · lead: Redpoint |
| 14 | OpenRouter | AI infrastructure / LLM gateway & routing | $113M Series B · 2026 · valuation $1.3B |
| 15 | Sail Research | AI infrastructure / LLM inference / agents | $80M (Series A; seed also raised) · 2026 · valuation $450M valuation · lead: Kleiner Perkins (Series A lead) |
| 16 | Tensormesh | AI infrastructure / inference optimization | Seed/Series A · 2026 |
| 17 | Vapi | AI voice / voice-agent infrastructure | $50M Series B · May 2026 · lead: Peak XV |
| 18 | Weaviate | AI data infrastructure / vector database | Series B/C · 2026 |
| 19 | Aembit | AI security / workload (non-human) identity | Series A · 2026 |
| 20 | Augment Code | AI developer tools / codebase understanding | ~$227M Series B · 2024-2026 · lead: Sutter Hill Ventures |
| 21 | Bolna | AI voice / conversational AI infrastructure | Seed / YC · lead: Y Combinator (accelerator) |
| 22 | Cartesia | AI voice / real-time speech models (infra) | $91M Series A · 2026 |
| 23 | Chainguard | AI security / software supply chain | $140M Series A · 2026 |
| 24 | DeepInfra | AI infrastructure / low-cost LLM inference | Series A/B · 2026 |
| 25 | Descope | AI security / identity & authentication (CIAM) | $53M Series A · 2026 |
| 26 | Dust | AI agents / enterprise agent platform | Series A/B · 2026 · lead: Sequoia |
| 27 | Exa | AI search infrastructure / semantic search API | Series A/B · 2026 |
| 28 | Fal | AI infrastructure / generative-media inference | Large 2026 round |
| 29 | Fencio | AI agents / agent governance infra (India) | Seed · 2025-2026 |
| 30 | Freehand | AI agents / enterprise supply chain (India) | $75M · August 2026 |
| 31 | Graphite | AI developer tools / code review | ~$52M Series B · 2026 |
| 32 | Hebbia | AI agents / enterprise research (finance/legal) | $130M Series B · 2024-2026 · lead: Index Ventures |
| 33 | LangWatch | AI developer tools / LLM observability | Seed |
| 34 | Marqo | AI data infrastructure / vector search | Seed/Series A · 2026 |
| 35 | Northflank | AI infrastructure / developer deploy platform | Series A · 2026 |
| 36 | Onyx Security | AI security / agent security & governance | $113M Series B · 2026 · valuation $640M · lead: Bessemer Venture Partners |
| 37 | Parallel | AI search infrastructure / web retrieval for agents | Series · 2026 |
| 38 | Perseus | AI coding / developer infrastructure / search | Seed / YC · lead: Y Combinator (accelerator) |
| 39 | Rain | AI-adjacent fintech / payments infrastructure | $250M Series C · January 2026 · valuation $1.95B post-money (17x up YoY) · lead: Iconiq Capital |
| 40 | Reducto | AI data infrastructure / document ingestion | Series B · 2025-2026 |
| 41 | Ressl AI | AI agents / agent infrastructure | Seed / YC · lead: Y Combinator (accelerator) |
| 42 | Rogo | AI fintech / research agent | Series B/C · 2026 |
| 43 | RunPod | AI infrastructure / serverless GPU cloud | Series A/B · 2026 |
| 44 | Semgrep | AI security / code security & SAST | $100M Series A · 2026 |
| 45 | Superlinked | AI data infrastructure / retrieval compute | Seed/Series A · 2026 |
| 46 | Tavily | AI search infrastructure / search API for agents | Seed/Series A · 2026 |
| 47 | Zilliz | AI data infrastructure / vector database | ~$113M+ total · 2026 |
| 48 | Zocks | AI fintech / data infrastructure / applied AI | $45M Series B · January 2026 · lead: QED Investors (backer |
| 49 | incident.io | AI developer tools / incident response | ~$62M Series B · 2026 |
| 50 | 8090 | AI developer tools / enterprise coding agents | $135M Series A · Q2/Q3 2026 · lead: Salesforce Ventures |
| 51 | Aikido Security | AI developer tools / app security | Series B · 2026 |
| 52 | AlgoTest | AI-adjacent fintech / low-latency trading | Seed / YC · lead: Raghav Malik (founder |
| 53 | Assort Health | AI agents / voice AI / vertical enterprise AI (healthcare) | $120M Series C · 2026 · valuation $1.2B |
| 54 | Coreworks AI | Applied AI / enterprise reporting automation (India) | $5M · 2026 |
| 55 | Decagon | AI agents / customer support (enterprise) | ~$100M+ · 2026 · lead: Accel |
| 56 | Exaforce | AI security / autonomous SOC agents | $125M Series B · 2026 |
| 57 | Factory | AI developer tools / agentic coding platform | Series B · 2026 |
| 58 | Gnani AI | AI voice / conversational AI / enterprise AI | $10M Series B · ~March 2026 |
| 59 | GodHands | AI developer tools / knowledge infrastructure | Seed / YC · lead: Y Combinator (accelerator) |
| 60 | Grace Investment Machine | AI fintech / autonomous trading agents | $20M Series A · July 2026 |
| 61 | Greptile | AI developer tools / code review | Seed/Series A · 2026 |
| 62 | Gumloop | AI automation / no-code agent workflows | ~$17M · 2026 |
| 63 | Kily | AI agents / consumer-brand growth (India) | Rs 30 Cr (~$3.5M) · 2026 |
| 64 | Koyeb | AI infrastructure / serverless deployment | Seed/Series A · 2026 |
| 65 | Maven AGI | AI agents / enterprise customer support | ~$50M · 2026 |
| 66 | Mintlify | AI developer tools / documentation | Series B · 2026 |
| 67 | Oasis Security | AI security / non-human identity | Series A/B · 2026 |
| 68 | Observe.AI | AI / contact-center intelligence (India-origin) | ~$214M total · 2026 · lead: SoftBank |
| 69 | Qodo | AI developer tools / code integrity & testing | ~$40M+ · 2026 |
| 70 | Replit | AI developer tools / agentic app platform | $250M Series C · 2026 |
| 71 | Seltz | AI search infrastructure / search-for-agents | $12.5M seed · June 2026 |
| 72 | Socket | AI developer tools / supply-chain security | ~$40M Series B · 2026 |
| 73 | Synthflow | AI voice / no-code voice agents | $29M Series A · 2026 |
| 74 | Trase | AI agents / vertical enterprise (healthcare/defense) | $107M seed · Q2 2026 · lead: ARCH Venture Partners |
| 75 | Twin Labs | AI automation / agentic RPA | Seed/Series A · 2026 |
| 76 | Upwind Security | AI security / cloud runtime security | $250M Series B · January 2026 |
| 77 | Yellow.ai | AI / conversational automation (India) | ~$100M+ total · 2026 · lead: Lightspeed |
| 78 | You.com | AI agents / enterprise research & search | $40M Series B · 2026 · lead: Salesforce Ventures |
| 79 | Agrani Labs | AI infrastructure / compute / hardware | $8M seed · January 2026 · lead: Peak XV Partners |
| 80 | Angoor AI | Applied AI / AI-led CRM (India) | Seed · 2025-2026 |
| 81 | Code Metal | AI developer tools / code transformation | Series A · 2026 |
| 82 | Convey | AI agents / enterprise coding & workflow | Series · 2026 |
| 83 | Corti | AI agents / vertical enterprise AI (healthcare) | $80M Series C · July 2025 · valuation $605M · lead: IVP |
| 84 | Harmonic Security | AI security / LLM & data security | Series A/B · 2026 |
| 85 | Pie | AI agents / vertical enterprise | Series · 2026 |
| 86 | Prophet Security | AI security / SOC alert-triage agents | Seed/Series A · 2026 |
| 87 | Tenex.AI | AI security / AI-enabled cybersecurity services | $250M Series B · Q1 2026 |
| 88 | Fireworks AI | AI infrastructure / model inference APIs | 1.5B Series D (~17.5B val); prior $250M Series C (Oct 2025) · 2026 · lead: Sequoia |
| 89 | Together AI | AI infrastructure / GPU cloud & inference | 305M Series B (Feb 2025); larger since (~7.5B talks) · 2025-2026 · lead: General Catalyst |
| 90 | Ada | AI / customer service automation | Large · 2026 |
| 91 | Cresta | AI / contact-center intelligence | Large · 2026 |
| 92 | Cyera | AI security / data security posture (DSPM) | ~$1.7B total raised · 2026 |
| 93 | KOGO | Applied AI / AI agent store & sovereign device (India) | ~$2.7M raised · 2026 · lead: MapmyIndia (strategic) |
| 94 | Parloa | AI voice / contact-center agents | ~$120M+ · 2026 |
| 95 | Raven | Applied AI / vertical enterprise AI (manufacturing) | Seed / YC · lead: Y Combinator (accelerator) |
| 96 | Saviynt | AI security / identity governance | $700M Series B (Dec 2025) · December 2025 |
| 97 | Uniphore | Enterprise AI / Business AI Cloud (India-origin) | $260M Series F · 2026 · lead: NVIDIA |
| 98 | XCures | AI data infrastructure (healthcare/oncology) | $46M Series B · 2026 · valuation $127M post-money · lead: Innovius Capital |
| 99 | Cloaked | AI security / consumer privacy | $375M Series B · Q1 2026 |
| 100 | Constems-AI | Vision AI SaaS (India) | $2M · 2026 |
| 101 | Activeloop | Vector Database | Series A · $11M · lead: Streamlined Ventures |
| 102 | Adept AI | AI Agents | Series B · $350M · valuation $1B+ · lead: General Catalyst |
| 103 | AegisAI | AI email security / anti-phishing | $36M · 2026-07-23 · lead: Battery |
| 104 | Anduril | Defense AI | Series H · $5.0B · May-26 · lead: Founders Fund |
| 105 | Anthropic | Foundation Models | Series H · $65.0B · May-26 · lead: Greenoaks |
| 106 | Anysphere / Cursor | AI coding / developer tools | Growth |
| 107 | Arize AI | AI Observability | Series B · $38M · lead: TPG |
| 108 | Browserbase | Browser infrastructure for AI agents | $40M · 2025 · lead: Kleiner Perkins |
| 109 | Character.ai | AI Chatbots | Series A · $150M · valuation $1B+ · lead: Andreessen Horowitz |
| 110 | Cognition | AI Software Eng | Late VC · $1.0B · May-26 · lead: Lux Capital |
| 111 | Cohere | Enterprise AI Models | Series C · $270M · valuation $2B+ · lead: Inovia Capital |
| 112 | Composio | Agent infrastructure / integrations | $25M · 2025-07-23 · lead: Lightspeed |
| 113 | Contextual AI | Enterprise RAG | Seed · $20M · lead: Bain Capital Ventures |
| 114 | CoreWeave | AI Cloud Infra | Series B · $221M · valuation $2B+ · lead: Magnetar Capital |
| 115 | Databricks | Data & AI Platform | Late Stage · $500M+ · valuation $43B · lead: T. Rowe Price |
| 116 | Deepset | AI App Framework | Series B · $30M · lead: Balderton Capital |
| 117 | Deeptune | RL environments / agent training | $43M · 2026-03-19 · lead: a16z |
| 118 | ElevenLabs | Voice / multimodal AI agents | $180M · 2025-01 · valuation $11B last valuation · lead: a16z |
| 119 | Ema | Enterprise AI Agents | Series A · $61M · Oct-24 · lead: Accel |
| 120 | Entire | AI developer collaboration / agent platform | $60M · 2026 · valuation $300M |
| 121 | Essential AI | Enterprise AI | Series A · $56M · lead: March Capital |
| 122 | Firsthand | AI brand agents / marketing | $26M · 2025-03-04 · lead: Radical |
| 123 | Fixie | AI Agents Platform | Seed · $17M · lead: Redpoint |
| 124 | Galileo | AI Observability | Series B · $45M · Oct-24 · lead: Scale Venture Partners |
| 125 | General Intuition | AI Agents (Gaming) | Series A · $320M · Jun-26 · lead: Khosla Ventures |
| 126 | Geordie AI | AI agent security / governance | 30M · 2026-05-28 · valuation ~180M · lead: Balderton |
| 127 | Giga | AI customer support automation | $61M · 2025 · lead: Redpoint |
| 128 | Glean | Enterprise AI Search | Series D · $200M · valuation $2.2B · lead: Kleiner Perkins |
| 129 | Gravity | AI-native advertising / agent commerce | $30.5M · 2026-08-07 · lead: Lightspeed |
| 130 | GreyLabs AI | Agentic voice AI / BFSI | ₹85 crore · 2025-10-06 · lead: Elevation |
| 131 | Harvey | Legal AI Agents | Series B · $21M · lead: Sequoia Capital |
| 132 | Imbue | AI Agents / Coding | Series B · $200M · valuation $1B+ · lead: Astera Institute |
| 133 | Krutrim | AI Models / Infra | Series A · $50M · Jan-24 · valuation $1.0B · lead: Matrix Partners |
| 134 | Labelbox | AI Data Engine | Series D · $110M · valuation $1B+ · lead: SoftBank |
| 135 | LangChain | AI Agent Framework | Series B · $125M · Oct-25 · valuation $1.25B · lead: IVP |
| 136 | LlamaIndex | AI Data Framework | Series A · $19M · Mar-25 · valuation $93M · lead: Norwest Venture Partners |
| 137 | Lovable | AI software creation / coding agents | Growth |
| 138 | Mercor | AI data / evaluation / enterprise agents | Series C |
| 139 | Metaforms | AI market research agents | $9M · 2025-08-01 · lead: Peak XV |
| 140 | Mistral AI | Foundation Models | Series C · $1.9B · Sep-25 · lead: ASML |
| 141 | Neysa | AI cloud / GPU infrastructure | $1.2B planned equity+debt package reported · 2026-02 · lead: Blackstone and other investors |
| 142 | Nscale | AI GPU Cloud | Series B · $150M · Jan-26 |
| 143 | Patronus AI | AI agent evaluation / testing | $50M · 2026-06-25 · lead: Greenfield Partners |
| 144 | Perplexity AI | AI Search Engine | Series B · $73.6M · valuation $1B+ · lead: IVP |
| 145 | Pinecone | Vector Database | Series B · $100M · valuation $750M · lead: Andreessen Horowitz |
| 146 | Poolside | AI coding / foundation models | Growth |
| 147 | Prime Intellect | Agent infrastructure / RL / compute | $130M · 2026-07-08 · valuation $1B · lead: Radical Ventures |
| 148 | Qure.ai | Healthcare AI | Growth |
| 149 | Replicate | ML Model Hosting | Series B · $40M · valuation $350M · lead: Andreessen Horowitz |
| 150 | Resolve AI | AI production engineering / SRE agents | $125M · 2026-07-17 · valuation $1B · lead: Lightspeed |
| 151 | Runway | AI Video Gen | Series C · $141M · valuation $1.5B · lead: Google |
| 152 | Safe Superintelligence | AI Research | Series A · $2.0B · Apr-25 · valuation $32B · lead: Greenoaks |
| 153 | Scale AI | AI Data Engine | Series F · $1.0B · valuation $13.8B · lead: Accel |
| 154 | Sierra | Conversational AI | Series E · $950M · May-26 · lead: Tiger Global |
| 155 | Simile | AI simulation / human behavior models | $100M · 2026-02 · lead: Index Ventures |
| 156 | Snorkel AI | Data Programming | Series C · $85M · valuation $1B+ · lead: Addition |
| 157 | Synthesia | AI Video Avatars | Series C · $90M · valuation $1B+ · lead: Accel |
| 158 | TinyFish | Web agents / browser automation | $47M · 2025-08-20 · lead: ICONIQ |
| 159 | Unstructured | AI Data Infra | Series B · $40M · lead: Menlo Ventures |
| 160 | Viktor | AI coworker / agent platform | $75M · 2026-05-19 · lead: Accel |
| 161 | Weights & Biases | MLOps Platform | Series C · $135M · valuation $1B+ · lead: Felicis |
| 162 | Wonderful | Enterprise AI agents | $150M · 2026-03-12 · valuation $2B · lead: Insight Partners |
| 163 | Writer | Enterprise AI | Series B · $100M · valuation $500M+ · lead: ICONIQ Growth |
| 164 | Eventual Treasury | AI fintech / treasury automation | Venture-backed (funding details N/A) |
| 165 | Loop AI | AI restaurant & retail back-office (delivery reconciliation, agentic) | Series A · $14M · Feb 2026 · lead: Nyca Partners |
| 166 | Abnormal AI | AI-native email & human-behavior security | Series D · $250M · Aug 2024 · valuation 5.1B · lead: Wellington Management (total ~550M) |
| 167 | 8club | AI invite-only events & networking (consumer social) | Seed · $795K · Feb 2024 · lead: India Quotient |
| 168 | ZZAZZ | AI economics / Large Pricing Model (dynamic content pricing) | Funding not publicly disclosed (N/A) |
| 169 | Smallest AI | Voice AI | Series A, 2026 · $13M |
| 170 | Wisdom AI | AI Data Analytics, AI Agents, Embedded Agentic Analytics, Conversational BI | Series A, Nov 2025 · $73M |
💼 Handpicked Resources for Startup Jobs
If you want to look beyond the usual LinkedIn job board grind, here are some high-signal, developer-focused platforms for discovering AI and startup roles:
- Trueup.io
- YC Work at a Startup
- Wellfound (formerly AngelList)
- TopHire
- HiringCafe
- Established Remote Companies
- NextPlay Jobs
- Remote In Tech
- Peerlist Jobs
- Weekday
📝 Note
This awesome list is maintained by Vinit Shahdeo. Please check out the resources below, and feel free to raise a pull request to improve the list or add new AI-first startups that are hiring.
- Blog (Substack): Interview prep, hiring-manager rounds, distributed systems, and engineering leadership — vinitshahdeo.substack.com
- AI-first hiring: The Future of Hiring: AI-Assisted Coding Interviews Are Changing What It Means to Be an Engineer
- Book: Digital Footprint for Software Engineers — available on Amazon & Flipkart. 100% of author royalties go toward cancer care.
- Hiring Manager Interview: How to Prepare for the Hiring Manager Round
- How to pick a right startup for you.
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