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Inside The Post-ChatGPT Playbook: A Founder’s Lessons On Building AI-Native Startups
By Matt Blumberg AI hype is reaching a tipping point. Every brand is racing to stay ahead of the adoption curve, but not every approach yields the same results. In the first half of 2025, billions of dollars flowed into the U.S. AI startup ecosystem. But the game has changed. We’re entering a “post-ChatGPT era,” where generative AI isn’t a differentiator, but a necessity. If a founder wants their AI startup to stand out and lead the next wave of innovation, it needs to be more than AI-enabled. That’s why today’s founders need to embrace an AI-native strategy. Why does being AI-native matter now?Matt Blumberg As a repeat founder, I’ve learned the value of this through relaunching a legacy brand as AI-first. Just bolting on AI isn’t enough to stay competitive. Founders need to cultivate reinvention and operate like an AI-driven company from day one. If you’re still tacking AI onto your product as an afterthought, you’ve already fallen behind. Being AI-native matters now more than ever as it’s the foundation of market competition. This next generation of startups will shape their architecture, go-to-market strategy, and customer value proposition as AI-first. This requires an important mindset shift to begin solving problems created by AI. Existing startups may rethink their approach. Ask yourself, “If we were starting this company today, how would AI define our business?” AI-native startups are positioned to thrive Adopting an AI-at-the-core mindset comes with clear competitive advantages. Trust as a cornerstone of AI strategy AI clearly offers companies practical advantages and solutions to common startup pain points. But embedding AI is more than rebranding and deploying models into workflows. It’s crucial to cement responsible practices as well. The promise of AI is powerful, but founders can’t afford to ignore risks around data quality or misinformation. These concerns remain very real for customers, employees and potential investors. Founders need to be champions of responsibility and accountability by designing governance and guardrails into their startups’ core. The result? AI-native companies that move fast and build lasting trust. Lessons from a repeat founder The founder’s playbook has changed. Just a few years ago, you could build powerful human-centered products and add automation later. Today, founders must operate differently. My experience has taught me to listen to the market, especially when it tells you to change. The winners in this next chapter of startups won’t just use AI to make things faster or cheaper, they’ll leverage it to make their businesses safer, more reliable and adaptive to a changing world. Matt Blumberg is the CEO of Markup AI and has more than 30 years of leadership in scaling global disruptive technology businesses. Before launching Markup AI, he successfully launched and led brands and companies including Acrolinx, MovieFone division of 777-FILM (acquired by AOL), Return Path (No. 2 on Fortune Magazine’s “Best Companies to Work for” list and later acquired by PSG/Validity), the nonprofit Path Forward, and Bolster, a disruptive platform for executive search in the tech industry. Illustration: Dom Guzman
Startup Funding Heats Up In October, With Billion-Dollar Rounds To Reflection, Polymarket, Crusoe And Base Power
Nine startups each raised $500 million or more last month, making October the second-busiest month in the past two years for such enormous funding deals. The busiest? That title goes to September, highlighting the extent to which startup investment deals of a half-trillion or more have become normalized in just the past few months. All told, venture investors poured $39 billion globally into early- and late-stage startups in October, Crunchbase data shows. Funding was up from $34 billion a year ago, though down from $51 billion month over month. In a rare occurrence, startups outside of Silicon Valley led the largest funding deals last month, Crunchbase data shows. Funding to New York-based startups surged by more than 200% from a year ago. The largest two venture rounds last month of $2 billion each went to New York-based companies: coding agent Reflection.ai, in an Nvidia-backed round, and trading prediction market Polymarket, in a deal led by NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange. Other large rounds were also raised by companies outside of Silicon Valley. Denver-based AI data center Crusoe Energy Systems raised the third-largest round, a $1.4 billion deal led by Mubadala Capital and Valor Equity Partners. Austin-based battery energy provider Base Power raised $1 billion led by private equity firm Addition, and Finland-based health and wellness ring tracker Oura raised a $900 million round led by Fidelity. In September by contrast, the largest rounds were raised by foundation model companies Anthropic ($13 billion), Mistral AI ($2 billion) and AI chip company Cerebras Systems ($1.1 billion). China and India were up The U.S. continued to dominate and led with 60% of global funding. China, the second-largest funding market, gained more than 200% year over year in October with $3.9 billion invested into its startups. The U.K., the third-largest market, was flat year over year at $1.7 billion. India rounded out the top four markets with $1.5 billion raised — up 80% from a year earlier. In the U.S., California-based companies raised $8.5 billion in October, while startups in New York state raised $5.9 billion, and Massachusetts-based companies landed $1.9 billion last month. Crypto, energy increased AI again dominated startup funding last month, with 38% of investment going to the sector, up 9% year over year but down from September totals. Healthcare and biotech was the second-largest sector with $8.6 billion. The third-largest sector, financial services companies, raised $7.6 billion. Industries that trended up significantly year over year were blockchain and crypto, energy, and funding to developer tools. Valuations heat up The Crunchbase Unicorn Board added hundreds of billions in value in October as OpenAI sold employee shares in a secondary sale valuing the company at $500 billion. An uptick in newly valued decacorn companies seen in September, continued into October, albeit at a slower pace. The IPO markets have opened up since Q2. However, the largest tech IPO in October, travel expense management company Navan, closed at $20, down 20%, on its first day of trading in contrast to many of the larger tech IPOs this year that closed well above the list price on going public. Methodology The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data reported is as of Nov. 3, 2025. Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year. Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price. Glossary of funding terms Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less. Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million. Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round. Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.) Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Aerial Robotics Startup Infravision Raises $91M Series B As Funding To Sector Surges
Infravision, a company that aims to transform how power lines are built and maintained with aerial robotics, has raised $91 million in Series B funding. Singapore’s GIC led the financing, which also included participation from Activate Capital Partners, Hitachi Ventures, and existing backer Energy Impact Partners. The round brings Austin, Texas-based Infravision’s total raised to just under $115 million since its 2018 inception, per Crunchbase data. Its valuation was not disclosed. The company raised $23 million in a Series A round led by Energy Impact Partners in September 2023. Infravision claims that its “flexible and automated approach” eliminates many of the contingencies and hazards inherent in conventional power line stringing methods. As a result, projects can be completed faster and more cost-effectively, the company says. Overall, startups developing robotics technologies have raked in just over $10.3 billion in 2025, according to Crunchbase data. With nearly two months left in the year, this amount is already 36% higher than the $7.54 billion raised by startups in the sector in all of 2024. While humanoid robotics startups generate the most attention, the largest funding recipients are a more diverse cohort, including surgical robotics, operating systems and manufacturing automation. They’re a geographically dispersed group as well, spanning the U.S., Europe and China. Preparing for the demand surge Infravision says it will use the new capital to accelerate the deployment of its TX System – an integrated combination of drones, intelligent ground equipment, and stringing hardware. It also plans to hire “aggressively,” according to Cameron Van Der Berg, co-founder and CEO of Infravision. He expects that the company will have between 150 to 200 employees by year end. The aerial robotics system has been used in power line projects around the world, including Powerlink Genex in Australia and emergency response deployments with PG&E in California, said Van Der Berg, in a release. PG&E is its biggest U.S. customer, Van Der Berg — a robotics engineer by background — told Crunchbase News via email. “Infravision’s core technology is an integrated system of four key sub-components that automate grid construction,” he added. “ It’s the system, not a drone alone, that delivers helicopter-class performance at an industrial scale for some of the largest and longest transmission projects in the world.” Infravision operates a B2B revenue model, focusing on utilities, contractors and developers as its key buyers. The company aims to form long-term, strategic partnerships with these customers where it leases equipment and provides services. “This investment will help us scale to provide a faster, safer, and more cost-effective way to meet surging electricity demand as the world races to double grid infrastructure by 2040,” he added. “With Australia established as a proven market, Infravision is now focused on expanding its North American operations.” Related Crunchbase queries: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
In The Space Of Months, AI Funding Boom Adds More Than $500B In Value To Unicorn Board And Reshuffles Top 20
The Crunchbase Unicorn Board crested $6 trillion in total value for the first time in August 2025. It only took around 18 months to get there after hitting the $5 trillion mark. Within a few months of the August milestone, the board added another half-trillion-plus in value, an unprecedented increase, even when compared to the peak market of 2021 and early 2022. The rapid acceleration in unicorn values highlights the remarkable pace at which the AI sector is driving up revenue — and, in turn, valuations. Much of the valuation surge on the board — which lists private companies valued at $1 billion or more — was driven by frontier model companies adding hundreds of billions in value, an analysis of Crunchbase data shows. Notably, there was also an uptick in companies that reached decacorn valuations for the first time and notched significant jumps in value over their previous marks. Reshuffling of the top 20 These valuation hikes were most noticeable in the 20 most highly valued companies on the Unicorn Board, which has undergone a major reshuffling at the top. OpenAI added $200 billion in the space of six months in early October after adding $143 billion in the prior six months. With a $500 billion valuation, the San Francisco-based startup is now the most highly valued company on the board, after it leapfrogged SpaceX for the No. 1 spot. SpaceX itself added $50 billion to its value in September, taking the Hawthorne, California-based company’s valuation to $400 billion. Anthropic, the fourth most highly valued unicorn after SpaceX and ByteDance, added $121.5 billion in value in the space of six months, valuing the San Francisco-based company at $183 billion as of September. Meanwhile, Databricks, another San Francisco-based company, added $38 billion in value within nine months, placing the company sixth on the board with a valuation of $100 billion. That ranks it just below China’s Ant Group, which was valued at $150 billion in 2018. Sydney-based design software maker Canva added $10 billion in value in August in an employee share sale led by Fidelity that valued the company at $42 billion. New decacorns Eleven companies have already joined the decacorn club in H2 so far — outpacing the half-year counts we’ve seen since H2 2022. Of the 11 new decacorns, the company that increased its value by the largest percentage was humanoid robotics company Figure. The San Jose, California-based startup catapulted into the top 20 with a $1 billion funding at a post money valuation of $39 billion. That was up from its March 2024 valuation of $2.7 billion — marking a more than 1,300% increase in 18 months. The funding was led by New York-based Parkway Venture Capital, which also led Figure’s Series A funding in 2023. The company is building out humanoid robots for home and commercial work, and is investing in manufacturing and training its own AI model. Another unicorn that posted a big valuation surge is cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, which raised $500 million at a $15 billion valuation in September. The San Francisco-based company was last valued in 2019 at $4 billion. Many of these newly minted decacorns’ ratcheted up by more than $5 billion in less than a year. Along with Figure and Kraken, the following are other new decacorns that have emerged just since the start of the second half of 2025: In Q2, five companies joined the $10 billion-plus club. They include Applied Intuition, Helsing, Perplexity, Thinking Machines Lab and Safe Super Intelligence. (Perplexity has since raised multiple rounds to reach a value of $20 billion.) Markets heat up While the frontier AI labs are seeing the largest valuation increases, there are a greater number of companies this year joining the decacorn club, second only to counts seen in 2021. We find 82 private companies in the decacorn club as of October 2025 with more than a third that raised funding in 2025 to date. This pick-up in higher counts of new decacorns could be an indicator that the IPO markets warm up in 2026. Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Week’s 10 Biggest Funding Rounds: AI, Fintech And E-Commerce In The Lead
Want to keep track of the largest startup funding deals in 2025 with our curated list of $100 million-plus venture deals to U.S.-based companies? Check out The Crunchbase Megadeals Board. This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top 10 announced funding rounds in the U.S. Check out last week’s biggest funding rounds here. The week’s largest funding rounds confirmed that we’re still very much in the AI era. This included the biggest deal, a $350 million Series C for AI hiring startup Mercor, along with good-sized financings for legal tech unicorn Harvey, shopping platform Whatnot, and email security provider Sublime Security. 1. Mercor, $350M, AI hiring: San Francisco-based Mercor, a provider of AI-enabled tools for hiring, secured $350 million in Series C funding at a $10 billion valuation. Felicis 1 led the financing, which included participation by Robinhood Ventures, General Catalyst and Benchmark. 2. (tied) SavvyMoney, $225M, fintech: SavvyMoney, which offers tools for financial services providers to embed features like credit scores and personalized offers into their consumer offerings, announced a $225 million investment co-led by PSG Equity and Canapi Ventures. Founded in 2009, the Dublin, California, company currently works with more than 1,500 financial institution customers. 2. (tied) Whatnot, $225M, e-commerce: Whatnot, a live shopping platform and marketplace, has closed a $225 million Series F round, more than doubling its valuation to $11.5 billion in less than 10 months. DST Global and CapitalG co-led the financing, which brings the Los Angeles-based company’s total raised to about $968 million since its 2019 inception. 4. (tied) Sublime Security, $150M, cybersecurity: Sublime Security, a developer of agentic AI tools for email security, raised $150 million in a Series C round led by Georgian. The financing brings total funding to date for the 6-year-old Washington, D.C.-based company to around $240 million, per Crunchbase data. 4. (tied) Harvey, $150M, legal tech: Harvey, developer of an AI-enabled platform for legal professionals, closed on a fresh $150 million, bringing total reported funding to date to $1 billion. Andreessen Horowitz led the latest round, which reportedly set an $8 billion valuation for the 3-year-old, San Francisco-based company. 6. (tied) Human Interest, $100M, finance: Human Interest, a San Francisco-based startup that helps small businesses offer 401(k) plans to their employees, raised more than $100 million at a $3 billion valuation, Axios reports. That valuation is up from the $1.3 billion the company was last valued at in 2024. Previous investors Baillie Gifford, BlackRock, Marshall Wace, Morgan Stanley and TPG again backed the company. 6. (tied) Substrate, $100M, semiconductors: Substrate, a San Francisco-based startup seeking to build semiconductor factories with new laser-based technology, raised $100 million from Founders Fund, General Catalyst, IQT and others. 8. Zag Bio, $80M, biotech: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Zag Bio, a developer of thymus-targeted medicines, announced its public launch with $80 million in financing, including a recently closed Series A round. Polaris Partners founded and incubated the startup and co-led the Series A financing with the JDRF T1D Fund. 9. ConductorOne, $79M, identity security: ConductorOne, an identity security startup building an AI platform geared for human, non-human and AI identities, landed $79 million in a Series B financing led by Greycroft. The 4-year-old Portland, Oregon-based company says it saw 400% revenue growth last year. 10. Blueprint, $60M, personal care: Blueprint, a Los Angeles-based brand that markets supplements, skin and hair care products, and foods geared to promote well-being and longevity, raised $60 million from a long list of venture and celebrity investors including Paris Hilton, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Logan Paul. Methodology We tracked the largest announced rounds in the Crunchbase database that were raised by U.S.-based companies for the period of Oct. 25-31. Although most announced rounds are represented in the database, there could be a small time lag as some rounds are reported late in the week. Illustration: Dom Guzman
The Non-Humanoid Robot Startups Are Rising Too
Despite our acclimatization to the forward march of technology, many of us remain vaguely creeped out by the concept of humanoid robots. Sure, it’d be wonderful to have autonomous machines adept at cleaning the house, harvesting and preparing food, running warehouses and performing a host of generally thankless and burdensome jobs. But must they look like us too? For many startups, the answer to this question is “no.” While humanoid robots startups like Figure and Apptronik have drawn headlines in recent months for big funding deals and flashy prototypes, an array of companies working on less-anthropomorphic designs have also secured considerable investment. These include four-legged models, AI-enabled appendages and skilled swimmers. The non-humanoid bot startups getting funded To illustrate, we used Crunchbase data to assemble a sample list of 26 companies in the non-humanoid robot startup sector that have raised rounds in the past few quarters. It’s a varied lot, with focus areas ranging from farming to pool cleaning to massaging. Bots around town The list also features a mix of consumer-facing and industrial use cases, and we figured we’d start by highlighting the first category. It’s not that these bots are necessarily more useful, but rather that being out in public does make it a bit more fun to contemplate. If recently funded startups have their way, some of the bots we see in action could be taking on more of the everyday drudgery currently shouldered by humans. Cleaning is one of the big areas. China-based Narwal Robotics, which closed a $100 million Series E in April, makes robot vacuums and mops and touts its “AI adaptive hot water mop washing,” LiDAR navigation and embedded dirt sensor. San Francisco-based The Bot Co., meanwhile, has raised $300 million since last year to iterate its vision of robots for household chores but has not yet released a prototype. Pool-cleaning, an area already long-dominated by autonomous machines, is also set for an AI era upgrade, with two China-based companies pulling in rounds of $140 million each this year. Xingmai Innovation, which closed its round in September, markets its $3,000 Beatbot model as the “world’s first AI-powered 5-in-1 robotic pool cleaner.” Rival Aiper charges $1,700 for its Scuba Max Pro, which features smart pool mapping and a dedicated app. And for those who need some pampering after a long day of not cleaning the pool, massage bot startup Aescape offers another spending option. The New York-based company secured $83 million in March to expand its customizable, “fully autonomous, AI-driven massage” offering. Bots behind the scenes While we may enjoy gawking at the still-unusual sight of a bot in public making a latte or delivering a restaurant meal, the bulk of funded companies in the non-humanoid bot space are working on models that will do their work behind the scenes. Surgical robots have long been one of the more heavily funded areas, and this holds true for recent investment as well. The largest fundraiser on our list, U.K.-based CMR Surgical, developer of a soft tissue surgical robot, has secured $1.1 billion in known funding to date, including a $200 million April financing. Israel-based ForSight Robotics, developer of a robotic platform for ophthalmic surgery, is also scaling up, closing a $125 million Series B in June. On the industrial front, Swiss startup Anybotics has raised more than $150 million to develop a four-legged bot optimized for inspections, capable of climbing stairs and avoiding obstacles. And Flexiv, which closed a $100 million Series C this summer, is working on appendage-like, AI-enabled robots that can be adapted for multiple industries. Agtech also emerged as a favored area for investment. Ecorobotix, based in Switzerland, has raised a couple hundred million for precision crop spraying, while Seattle-based Carbon Robotix is working on technology to kill weeds with lasers. Won’t mistake it for a human Of all the above-mentioned startups, none appear to be working on anything that could be remotely confused for a human, even from a distance. This seems logical, considering that so many jobs people have historically done don’t seem ideally suited to our particular form. If all goes well with these non-humanoid robot startups, perhaps it would leave us humans free to spend more time doing the activities that do seem optimally suited to our form. Sitting on the couch would be high on this author’s list, though I’m sure others could find many more productive pursuits. Related Crunchbase list: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Exclusive: Founded By Uber Alumni, Archy Raises $20M To Put Dental Practices ‘On Autopilot’
It was 2021 and Jonathan Rat was tired of seeing his wife, a dentist, struggle to maintain the tech stack at her practice. Rat, who had served as a product manager at companies including Uber, Meta and SurveyMonkey, dug into the problem and discovered that “most of the software used in the industry” was more than 20 years old and still required physical services onsite. “Most lacked integration with other platforms, were slow and buggy, and impossible to train new employees on,” he recalls. Archy Founders Benjamin Kolin and Jonathan Rat So Rat teamed up with Benjamin Kolin, a former director of engineering at Uber, to start Archy, an AI-powered platform that aims “to put dental practices on autopilot.” The pair previously led the rebuilding of Uber’s payment platform that’s still in use today. “I realized there was a massive need and opportunity for a modern, cloud-based software platform and set out to build that,” Rat told Crunchbase News. “I also realized bigger tech players have been building software for the larger healthcare market but overlooked the $500 billion dental industry.” And now, Archy has just raised $20 million in Series B funding to help it grow even more, it told Crunchbase News exclusively. TCV led the financing, which also included participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, CRV, Entrée Capital and 25 practicing dentists who wrote checks as angel investors. The raise brings Archy’s total funding to date to $47 million, Rat said. The company raised a $15 million Series A led by Entrée Capital almost exactly one year ago. Rat confirmed the Series B was an up round, but declined to disclose Archy’s valuation. All-in-one tool Archy claims to replace more than five existing tools to handle scheduling, charting, billing, imaging, insurance, payments, staffing, messaging and reporting “from one login.” It is now building AI agents “to handle the busywork” such as checking eligibility, filing and following up on claims, writing notes, managing patient communications and scheduling, and “turning raw practice data into clear answers,” according to Rat. The startup processes more than $100 million in payments annually across 45 states and has seen roughly 300% year-over-year growth, he said. It currently serves 2.5 million patients and has processed over 35 million X-rays through its platform. The company claims that mid-sized dental practices report saving around 80 hours a month by using its technology, and are able to avoid “big hardware costs.” For example, Rat said that one practice saved about $50,000 in its first year of using Archy. Dual-revenue model San Jose, California-based Archy operates on a dual-revenue model that combines subscription-based fees with payment processing services, and offers tiered monthly subscription packages. In addition to its subscription fees, Archy serves as a merchant processor for its clients, generating revenue from a percentage of payment transactions processed through the platform. “This hybrid approach allows us to remain aligned with our clients’ success while providing flexible options that scale with their business needs,” Rat told Crunchbase News. The company plans to use its new capital to “hire aggressively” across its engineering, AI and go-to-market teams. Presently, it has 57 employees. It plans to expand internationally starting in 2026. Austin Levitt, partner at TCV, told Crunchbase News via email that his firm had been looking for a way to invest in the dental space “for a long time” but didn’t find a company that was “appropriately tackling the root of the problem — the core PMS (practice management systems)” until it came across Archy. He added: “We consistently heard that Archy was supremely easy to use, requiring almost no training in contrast to others, providing a seamless ‘iPhone-like’ experience, and reducing what took 10 clicks in other software to one or none in Archy.” Related Crunchbase queries: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Regulation As Alpha: Why The Smartest Startups Now Build Legal Strategy Into Their DNA
Every founder knows the thrill of the moment: the first term sheet lands, the product is live, the market is opening up. But in 2025, there’s a new line in the sand: Did you clear the regulatory path before you scaled? Today, it’s not enough to disrupt the market — you have to anticipate the rule-set that will govern it. Investors are shifting gears. After a decade of “move fast and break things,” they’re asking: Who built the compliance engine before the crash? Because the truth is, regulation has become a form of alpha — a competitive advantage for startups that think of law not as a hurdle, but as a moat. The new era of smart compliance The startup landscape has changed. High-profile failures — from crypto exchanges to wild valuations in fintech and AI — taught us that the regulatory cost of growth can be massive. Today’s investors and founders alike expect legal strategy from day one, not as an afterthought. Consider the RegTech market: One recent estimate projects it will swell to about $70.64 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual rate of roughly 23%. Another forecast predicts growth to $70.8 billion by 2033. The message: Companies are no longer asking if they need compliance automation and legal-engineering infrastructure. They’re asking when they can monetize it. So when a startup designs its product around KYC, AML, data-protection or licensing from the outset, it’s not just avoiding risk — it’s building a moat others will struggle to cross. For founders, regulation isn’t just the cost of entry anymore — it’s the cost of exit-edge. When the law becomes a moat There are former unicorns, and there are regulation-ready unicorns. The difference hinges on when they built their compliance architecture, hired legal engineers and treated regulation as product. Take payment infrastructure: Stripe built payment-security and licensing into its model early, as Stripe’s PCI Level 1 certification and multijurisdiction licenses (U.S. money-transmitter, EU/UK e-money) enabled it to integrate cleanly with Apple Pay, power Shopify’s native payments, and — per a 2023 announcement — expand its role processing payments for Amazon. Or look at crypto: Coinbase built a licensure footprint early, publishing its U.S. money-transmitter licenses and securing New York’s BitLicense in 2017. Its 2021 SEC S-1 repeatedly frames regulatory compliance and licensing as fundamental to the business. In insurtech, from the outset, Lemonade hired senior insurance veterans (e.g., former AIG executive Ty Sagalow) and, per its S-1 and subsequent filings, expanded licensure across the U.S., operationalizing the 50-state regulatory landscape rather than trying to route around it. These examples show a pattern: When compliance is built in from the start, the cost of scaling drops and competitors face much higher entry bars. Regulation becomes a moat — not a burden. The rise of ‘legal engineering’ Welcome to the era of the legal engineer. The traditional model (sign contract, then lawyer reads, then flagged risk) is being replaced by code, automation and internal teams who speak both product and law. Startups such as Carta built cap-table software that includes “built-in tools and support to help with compliance year-round,” allowing it to embed governance and securities-law readiness into the product nature of equity management. Plaid has publicly positioned itself for evolving “data use, access, and consumer permission” rules (e.g., Section 1033) by building features such as data transparency messaging and consent-capture into its API stack — indicating a clear regulatory-first posture in its product roadmap. And what’s happening in AI? Founders are hiring general counsels on day one to forecast imminent regimes — privacy law (GDPR, CCPA), AI transparency bills, emerging algorithms-as-infrastructure regulation. The startup battle isn’t simply product vs. product anymore — it’s regulatory architecture vs. regulatory architecture. Reports back this up: One credible industry estimate shows the global compliance, governance and risk market is already around $80 billion and projected to reach $120 billion in the next five years. In short: Startups that solve compliance at scale are building infrastructure for everyone else to rent. That’s platform-level potential. Investors are taking note Regulation-ready startups aren’t just surviving — they’re attracting smarter capital. Venture funds now assess regulatory maturity, legal runway and governance readiness early on. A startup that can show it isn’t “waiting to deal with compliance” but designed it, has a valuation edge. Crunchbase data shows global startup funding reached $91 billion in Q2 2025, up 11% year over year. While not all of that is focused on law or compliance, the trend signals that smart investors are buried deeper in risk assessment and governance. Legal tech funding is accelerating, too: the sector recently topped $2.4 billion in venture funding this year, an all-time high. Funds are no longer only assessing TAM or go-to-market speed; they’re asking: “What’s the regulatory runway? Who owns risk? Who built the compliance pipeline?” Because in sectors like fintech, climate tech, health tech and AI, the fastest growth path is often the one that avoids the enforcement arm. The future: law as competitive advantage Let’s zoom out for a moment. We’re moving into a world where regulation isn’t a ceiling — it’s scaffolding. It defines markets, enables scaling and filters winners from pretenders. Founders who see law as a source of architecture, not as chewing-gum-on-the-shoe, will be the ones writing the playbook. Think about AI: Startups that design for regulatory change (data-provenance, audit trails, rights management) are already positioning for the future. Think about climate tech: Companies that can navigate evolving carbon-credit regimes or ESG disclosure laws are building invisible advantages. Think about fintech: Those that mastered licensing, KYC/AML, consumer-data flows early are the backbone of infrastructure. The next wave of unicorns won’t just have better tech — they’ll have truly infinitely better legal DNA. They won’t just disrupt a market; they’ll help write the rules of the market before they scale. Because in this new era, regulation isn’t a deadweight — it’s a launchpad. Aron Solomon is the chief strategy officer for Amplify. He holds a law degree and has taught entrepreneurship at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania, and was elected to Fastcase 50, recognizing the top 50 legal innovators in the world. His writing has been featured in Newsweek, The Hill, Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, CBS News, CNBC, USA Today and many other publications. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his op-ed in The Independent exposing the NFL’s “race-norming” policies. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman