A total of 38 companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in September, adding $71 billion in value to the board. Semiconductors, financial services and space technology led for new counts, with the remainder hailing from biotech, AI infrastructure, AI training, security and frontier labs. Twenty-one of last month’s new unicorns are U.S. headquartered. Six new unicorns joined from China and three from the U.K., while Canada, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Israel, Italy, Finland, Germany and Bulgaria each added one new unicorn. Through September, 311 companies have joined the board so far this year, putting 2026 on track to be the second-highest year for new unicorn creation, following only the venture peak year of 2021, when counts topped 600.
Several companies already on the board stood out for significant valuation increases via new raises last month. They include San Francisco-based Cognition, developer of AI for software engineering, which saw its value climb to $48 billion, up from $26 billion only four months earlier. Data center provider Crusoe was valued at $31 billion last month, up from $10 billion a year ago. And Paris-based frontier lab Mistral was valued at $24.4 billion in its more recent funding, up from $13.7 billion a year ago.
Among the new September unicorns, Fab2, an Austin-based semiconductor manufacturing startup, closed a $500 million Series A at a $3.7 billion valuation. Celero Communications, an Irvine-based semiconductor company, raised a $275 million Series C, valuing it above $3 billion. OG, a Texas-based prediction-market platform, announced a strategic partnership with Robinhood and was valued at $5 billion. Saudi Arabia-based Barq, a digital payments company, raised a $329.5 million Series A at a $1.85 billion valuation.
The surge in new unicorns across semiconductors, fintech and space tech underscores continued investor appetite for high-growth sectors. With 311 companies joining the board through September, the pace suggests 2026 could rival the peak years of unicorn creation seen in 2021.
Source: Crunchbase News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing