The latest Next Billion-Dollar Startups list from Forbes spotlights a familiar theme for 2025: artificial intelligence. According to the publication, 20 of the 25 U.S.-based, venture-backed companies highlighted this year are AI-focused, spanning applications from healthcare and accounting to defense and creative tooling. The selection continues a decade-long partnership with TrueBridge Capital Partners and leans on the program’s strong historical record with Forbes noting that more than half of past alumni later achieved unicorn status.

“Of the 250 alumni, 140, or 56%, became unicorns, including DoorDash, Figma and Anduril. Forty-two were acquired; only two went public for less than $1 billion. Just five — 2% of our selections — have imploded or shut down,” Forbes said.

Forbes and TrueBridge used a nomination and evaluation process that filtered for U.S. venture-backed companies valued under $1 billion. The editors and partners then combined journalists’ reporting with quantitative analysis to identify high-potential private startups. The list is deliberately broad in sector coverage and emphasizes founders, early traction, investor backing and 2024 revenue estimates, even when many companies are still generating modest sales.

A lone Boston startup on the list is AcuityMD, founded by Robert Coe, Mike Monovoukas (CEO) and Lee Smith. “AcuityMD helps manufacturers find the right physicians based on the patients they treat by using de-identified data (think surgical histories, medical referrals) for 325 million people to craft marketing plans,” Forbes said. “Customers include Synchron, which used it to find patients for a brain-computer interface preclinical trial, and Intellijoint, which did so to market a new surgical tool for hip and knee replacements.” AcuityMD’s lead investors include Benchmark, Iconiq and Redpoint.

New York startups on the list include Agentio, founded by Arthur Leopold (CEO) and Jonathan Meyers, “a marketplace of creators so brands can easily find which influencers will work best for them”; Basis, founded by Matthew Harp (CEO) and Mitchell Troyanovsky, which makes AI accounting software; Graphite, founded by Greg Foster, Merrill Lutsky (CEO) and Tomas Reimers, which has developed an AI assistant Diamond that can speed up code reviews; and Rogo, founded by Tumas Rackaitis, Gabriel Stengel (CEO) and John Willett, which is building a chatbot to help junior bankers crunch numbers, prepare presentations and spreadsheets or doing basic research.

Los Angeles-area startups on the list include Apex, a small-satellite manufacturer based in Santa Ana, Calif., and founded by Max Benassi, Ian Cinnamon (CEO), which has won meaningful Department of Defense business; and Stan, founded by Vitalii Dodonov and John Hu (CEO), which makes it easier for those with online fame to cash in on their success with an online storefront linked to their social media profile.

Maryland’s sole startup on the Forbes list is Forterra, founded by engineers Alberto Lacaze and Karl Murphy. It has won a $93 million contract from the U.S. Army to produce mine-clearing robots and it is also part of a team building self-driving missile launchers for the Marines, Forbes said. Forterra has raised $303 million, with backers including Hedosophia, Moore Strategic Ventures and XYZ Venture Capital.

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