The fastest-growing private AI startups of 2026 — ranked by momentum, every figure sourced. SR30, Class of 2026, refreshed weekly. Each company is decoded in a Startup Riders Growth Playbook with sourced, dated ARR, valuation, funding and hiring figures.
Made for investors tracking the breakout cohort, operators reverse-engineering growth, and people deciding where to work next.
| # | Company↕ | HQ↕ | Round↕ | Total Raised↕ | Backers↕ | Months↕ | Revenue↕ | Rev/emp↕ | Team↕ | Momentum▼ | Verified↕ | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1– | 🇺🇸 | Series F | $3.1B | ICONIQ +2 | 7mo | $1.5B | $1.5M | 1,000Careers ↗ | 85 | Reported | Read → | |
| 2– | 🇺🇸 | Series E-6 | $1.7B | IVP +3 | 6mo | $450M | $2.3M | 200Careers ↗ | 84 | Reported | Read → | |
| 3▲2 | 🇸🇪 | Series B | $545M | Accel +2 | 7mo | $500M | $2M | 25042 open ↑ | 83 | Reported | Read → | |
| 4▼1 | 🇺🇸 | Series C | $492M | Felicis +2 | 8mo | — | — | 350Careers ↗ | 82 | Estimated | Read → | |
| 5▼1 | 🇫🇷 | Series D | $6.5B | ASML +2 | 9mo | $400M | $455K | 880Careers ↗ | 82 | Reported | Read → | |
| 6▲3 | 🇺🇸 | Series F | $1.3B | Sequoia +2 | 12mo | $300M | $652K | 460Careers ↗ | 80 | Verified | Read → | |
| 7▲3 | 🇺🇸 | Series E | $1.5B | Sequoia +2 | 9mo | $200M | $400K | 50035 open ↑ | 78 | Reported | Read → | |
| 8▲1 | 🇺🇸 | Series D | $922M | Georgian +2 | 6mo | $525M | $1.9M | 282Careers ↗ | 76 | Estimated | Read → | |
| 9– | 🇬🇧 | Series C | $192M | Index Ventures +2 | 10mo | — | — | 116Careers ↗ | 76 | Reported | Read → | |
| 10▼1 | 🇺🇸 | Series C | $204M | Sequoia +2 | 7mo | $100M | $333K | 300Careers ↗ | 73 | Reported | Read → | |
| 11– | 🇬🇧 | Series E | $537M | GV +2 | 12mo | $150M | $250K | 600Careers ↗ | 70 | Reported | Read → | |
| 12▼4 | 🇪🇸 | Bootstrapped / PE | $0 | EQT | - | $230M | $160K | 1,436Careers ↗ | 65 | Reported | Read → |
12 of 30 decoded · Class of 2026. Click any column header to sort. Default rank is SR Momentum Score (see /methodology).
Know a private company past ~$100M ARR that belongs in the Class of 2026? Send it our way.
Nominate a company →The $100M ARR Breakout Club is the durable, citable list of private tech companies that have crossed roughly $100M ARR, or equivalent heavy product-market-fit scale, and are still compounding fast. The current edition is SR30 · Class of 2026. Each company is decoded by Startup Riders in a Growth Playbook with sourced, dated data: ARR, valuation, funding, headcount, and the SR Momentum Score. Public companies and frontier labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI) are excluded because their story is capital and distribution, not a repeatable growth playbook.
By time-to-$100M ARR, the fastest-growing private AI startups of 2026 are Lovable ($0→$500M ARR in about 14 months), Mercor ($1M→~$1.5B gross run-rate in 17 months), Replit ($2.5M→~$525M in ~14 months) and Sierra ($0→$200M in 26 months). The Startup Riders Growth Index ranks the full cohort by the SR Momentum Score — a composite of funding momentum, hiring velocity, backer quality, corroboration and heat.
By SR Momentum Score, the hottest private AI startups of 2026 are Lovable (97), Mercor (96), Ramp (95), Harvey (94), Perplexity (93), Mistral AI (92), Sierra (91) and Replit (90). Each is decoded with sourced, dated figures: ARR, valuation, funding, headcount and the score breakdown across funding, hiring, backers, corroboration and heat.
By ARR, the highest-revenue private AI startups in the Class of 2026 are Ramp ($1.5B ARR), Replit (~$525M est), Lovable ($500M), Perplexity ($450M), Mistral AI ($400M), Harvey ($300M), Freepik/Magnific ($230M), Sierra ($200M), Synthesia ($150M) and Clay ($100M). Mercor reports ~$1.5B gross run-rate rather than ARR, and Granola doesn't disclose ARR.
By total raised, the most-funded private AI startups in the index are Mistral AI ($6.5B), Ramp ($3.1B), Perplexity ($1.72B), Sierra ($1.5B), Harvey ($1.3B), Replit ($922M), Lovable ($545M), Synthesia ($537M), Mercor ($492M), Clay ($204M) and Granola ($192M). Freepik/Magnific is the outlier — bootstrapped to $230M ARR.
The Startup Riders Growth Index excludes public companies and the saturated frontier labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI) where the story is capital and distribution. Among the private breakout cohort, Lovable leads on momentum (97), Ramp leads on ARR ($1.5B), Mistral leads on total raised ($6.5B), and Harvey is the fastest-climber this week (▲3 on rank, $300M ARR). Each is decoded weekly with sourced, dated figures.
Freepik rebranded to Magnific in April 2026 and disclosed $230M ARR with 290+ enterprise customers. In June 2026 it announced an ERE affecting ~105 staff (~30% of its Spanish workforce), citing restructuring around its AI pivot, with EQT reportedly eyeing an exit — which dropped it 4 spots on the index this week. See its company page for the full sourced timeline.
