The US and China now own most billion-dollar startups, and India has slipped behind the UK
Hurun's 2026 index counted a record 1,603 unicorns, meaning startups worth US$1bn or more, together valued at US$8tn. The US has 806 of them and China 381, and China is now producing a new one about every five days. India dropped to fourth as the UK passed it, one of the few countries to lose ground this year. Almost all the growth came from AI startups, which now number 215 unicorns and hold 36% of all unicorn value.
The biggest AI cheques now come from the Gulf and Asia, not the US
Saudi Arabia's Aramco Ventures led an US$800m investment in Together AI, valuing it at US$8.3bn; Together AI runs on Chinese open-source AI models and Taiwanese chips, so a major US startup now depends on a supply chain that skips US firms at almost every step. Venice AI crossed a US$1bn valuation in July 2026, adding another privacy-focused inference unicorn to the Gulf-backed cohort. Korea's NAVER and Amazon together backed TwelveLabs with US$100m. Prices are running ahead of what these startups have built: former Anthropic staff raised US$200m at about US$1bn before releasing a single product. US labs still raise the most money, but they no longer set the price on their own.
China is funding its own robot startups, and shutting Western investors out
Two Shenzhen robotics startups hit valuations of about US$2.8bn each, with all money from Chinese tech giants, Meituan, Alibaba, ByteDance and Xiaomi, not foreign funds. By funding its humanoid-robot work through its own big companies, China keeps the field out of reach of US export controls. US startups Skild and Generalist AI are chasing the same goal, but the two sides are funded with completely separate money that never mixes.
The big listings came back, and Asia and the Gulf did the buying
The clearest example was Luxshare's Hong Kong share sale of up to US$3.1bn, the year's largest. Its biggest early buyers were Singapore's Temasek and GIC and Abu Dhabi's ADIA, not US investors. India's OYO filed again for a ₹6,650 crore listing, its fourth attempt. OpenAI is said to be delaying its listing to 2027 while chief executive Sam Altman waits for a US$1tn valuation. US firm Datadog bought France's Adaptive ML, another European startup sold off before it could grow at home.
Finance startups still fetch the fattest prices
Meta paid US$900m for about 20% of India's CRED, partly to hire its founder to run WhatsApp. US company Ramp reached a US$44bn valuation for the same reason. Singapore offers a quieter contrast: Qashier raised a small round and is already profitable, handling US$1bn in payments without burning cash to grow.
Europe is finally building its own startup money, even as AI keeps cutting jobs
A €500m defence fund from AVP and Earlybird and Tapestry Fund III, backed by the UK's British Business Bank, are Europe's answer to a16z's US$15bn fund. Meanwhile, Cisco cut 471 jobs in California during one of its best quarters, after Oracle cut 21,000. The cuts are now reaching engineers, not just support staff.
Even the smallest markets are tilting the same way
In biotech, Oblenio raised US$62m for an autoimmune drug licensed from China's Leads Biolabs. First-half Africa funding passed US$1.2bn but fell 17% from a year earlier, held up almost entirely by Spiro's US$270m. Moonshot AI accelerated a Hong Kong IPO at a US$30 billion valuation on July 20 following the Kimi K3 release, which had wiped US$3.3 trillion from global chip stocks; if the listing proceeds, it would be the largest Chinese AI IPO in Hong Kong since the sector emerged. Watch: Moonshot's Hong Kong listing timeline and pricing; OpenAI's listing timing; how far Gulf and Chinese money pushes into deals the US once dominated; Venice AI's next funding round.
