Top 10 most inspiring startups to watch in 2025

What is the tech startup industry up to in 2025? 

What types of initiatives are investors interested in funding?

What specific features and functionalities are users looking for?

We’re sharing the top 10 operational startups launched in 2024 with the highest Dealroom Signal score to give you an idea of what’s trending in the industry and what ideas are going to gain the most traction in 2025.

Top 10 startups to watch in 2025

1️⃣ Worth AI: Inclusive financial underwriting

Worth AI is a minority-founded SaaS platform powering inclusive financial underwriting through AI.

Founders: Suneera Madhani and Sal Rehmetullah (also co-founded Stax Payments, a payment processing firm that achieved unicorn status in 2022).

Problem They Solve:
They solve the issue of unclear and inconsistent business credit scoring. Small businesses often face challenges with credit evaluations that feel unfair or lack transparency. Worth AI uses artificial intelligence to create a more reliable and standardized way of assessing business credit.

Features:

1. Worth Score™:
   A single, AI-driven credit score that collects and analyzes data from multiple sources. It helps lenders understand a business’s financial health clearly.
2. AI Underwriting Assistant:
   Helps underwriters make better decisions with real-time insights and recommendations during the credit approval process.
3. Automated Credit Risk Assessment:
   Predicts credit risks for lenders using advanced AI models. This helps prevent losses and ensures better decision-making.
4. Seamless Onboarding:
   Makes onboarding new customers faster with automated document checks and compliance verification.
5. Continuous Risk Monitoring:
   Tracks risks in real-time, helping lenders and businesses stay ahead of potential issues.

2️⃣ Safe Superintelligence Inc. 

The world’s first straight-shot SSI lab, with one goal and one product: a safe superintelligence.

Founders: SSI was founded by Ilya Sutskever, Daniel Gross, and Daniel Levy. Ilya Sutskever, formerly the chief scientist at OpenAI, co-founded SSI after departing OpenAI in May 2024. Daniel Gross, a former partner at Y Combinator, and Daniel Levy, an AI researcher and investor, joined Sutskever in this venture.

Problem They Solve:

SSI is tackling one of the biggest concerns in AI: building superintelligent systems that are safe and aligned with human values. Without proper safeguards, AI could become harmful. SSI focuses on making sure safety measures stay ahead of AI’s capabilities.

Features:  SSI is dedicated solely to building a safe superintelligence, avoiding distractions from other products or commercial pressures.

In September 2024, SSI raised $1 billion from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, DST Global, and SV Angel, valuing the company at approximately $5 billion. SSI is assembling a team of world-class engineers and researchers dedicated exclusively to developing safe superintelligence

3️⃣ Mirador Therapeutics: Precision medicine for inflammatory and fibrotic diseases

Mirador leverages the latest advances in human genetics and cutting-edge data science to rapidly advance new precision medicines.

Founder: Mark C. McKenna (Chairman and CEO), a biotech leader with a proven track record in delivering results for patients and investors.

Problem They Solve: Current treatments for immune-mediated inflammatory and fibrotic diseases don’t always work well. These conditions can be complex and challenging to manage. Mirador Therapeutics is tackling this by creating precision medicines that target the root causes of these diseases.

Features:

• Mirador360™ Precision Development Engine: This proprietary platform harmonizes millions of patient molecular profiles to discover and validate genetic associations with immuno-fibrotic diseases. It identifies novel therapeutic targets and elucidates optimal target pairs for potential combination therapies.

The company is led by several former executives of Prometheus Biosciences, which was acquired by Merck in 2023 for $10.8 billion. This team brings a proven track record in precision immunology.  In March 2024, Mirador secured over $400 million in financing led by ARCH Venture Partners, with participation from other premier life sciences investors. This funding supports the rapid advancement of multiple therapeutic programs.

4️⃣ Taxi: tax-powered working capital facility 

Taxi helps New Zealand businesses get quick, affordable cash by using their tax payments as security.

Founders: Nicola Taylor Josh Taylor Dan Faris

Problem They Solve: Many New Zealand businesses face cash flow challenges, especially when provisional tax payments are due. Traditional funding options can be costly and cumbersome. Taxi offers a solution by allowing businesses to leverage their tax payments to access affordable working capital, easing financial strain.

Features:

1. Easy Account Setup: No credit checks or lengthy applications. Businesses can quickly create an account and link their myIR data.
2. Flexible Funding: After making provisional tax payments through Taxi, businesses can access funds within three working days. Repayments are tailored to fit each business’s cash flow needs.
3. Competitive Interest Rate: Taxi offers a 7.09% p.a. interest rate, which is lower than typical business overdraft rates from major banks.
4. No Personal Guarantees: Funding is secured against provisional tax payments, so no personal guarantees are required.
5. Integration with myIR: Seamless connection with Inland Revenue ensures smooth transactions and compliance.

5️⃣ CuspAI: AI material design

Developing a platform to design new materials for sustainability and clean energy using use genAI, deep learning, and molecular simulation.

Founders:

• Professor Max Welling: A leading AI researcher and professor at the University of Amsterdam.
• Dr. Chad Edwards: A chemist with experience at Google and quantum computing company Quantinuum.

Problem They Solve: Developing new materials is often slow and costly. CuspAI uses artificial intelligence to speed up this process, aiming to create materials that can help tackle climate change, like those used in carbon capture.

Features: Their platform acts like a search engine for materials. Users input desired properties, and the AI suggests chemical compositions that match.

In June 2024, they raised $30 million in seed funding from investors like Hoxton Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners. What’s more, CuspAI has partnered with Meta to advance materials discovery for climate change solutions.

6️⃣ SkillsWave: Tailored employee learning programs

SkillsWave is a mission to drive people and businesses forward—one skill at a time. How? By enabling L&D leaders to roll out engaging employee learning programs.

Founders:
John Baker, who also founded D2L, serves as the Founder and Executive Chair. Dr. Sasha Thackaberry Voinovich is the President.

Problem They Solve:
Many businesses struggle with employee retention, skills gaps, and internal mobility. SkillsWave addresses these challenges by offering tailored learning solutions that align with organizational needs, helping companies build tomorrow’s most valued skills today.

Features:

1. Upskilling platform: Provides access to thousands of future-focused courses, degrees, and certificates from top-tier education partners.
2. Personalized Learning Pathways: Offers customized career paths and learning recommendations for each employee, enhancing engagement and growth.
3. Skills Mapping: Programmatically maps skills to careers, identifying gaps and emerging skills needed for advancement.
4. Education Benefit Management: Simplifies the administration of education benefits with direct billing and comprehensive analytics, eliminating the need for reimbursements.
5. Learning Analytics: Provides a bird’s-eye view of learner progress and outcomes, demonstrating the ROI of learning programs.

7️⃣ Figure Markets: Decentralized trading

Figure Markets is building a decentralized custody marketplace where investors can trade a wide range of blockchain-native assets, including cryptocurrencies, stocks, bonds, and credit

Founders:Figure Markets was founded by Mike Cagney, who also co-founded SoFi and Figure Technologies.

Problem They Solve:
Traditional financial markets often face issues like centralized custody risks, limited asset accessibility, and inefficiencies in trading various asset classes. Figure Markets addresses these challenges by offering a decentralized platform that enhances security, broadens asset accessibility, and streamlines trading processes.

Features:

• Decentralized Custody: Instead of holding all your assets in one place, Figure splits keys across a network. This reduces the risk of hacking or loss.
• All-in-One Trading Platform: You’ll be able to trade cryptocurrencies, stocks, bonds, and more in one spot.
• Crypto-Backed Loans: Need cash but don’t want to sell your crypto? Figure lets you borrow against it.

8️⃣iCanHeal: Affordable healthcare for India

Heal I Can works with the different members of the Healthcare ecosystem to make healthcare more affordable and accessible to patients.

Founders:

• Amit Backliwal: Co-founder of Pharmarack, India’s largest B2B pharma tech platform; former VP APAC Commercial for IQVIA; led the first liver cancer registry in Asia.
• Girish Poddar: Chartered Accountant with over 24 years of experience in risk, finance, banking, analytics, and healthcare; held positions as Chief Risk Officer, Chief Credit Officer, and Business Head for large multinational banks and listed NBFCs.

Problem They Solve: Many patients in India struggle to afford timely and effective medical treatments, especially for critical illnesses like cancer. iCanHeal addresses this issue by offering customized healthcare financing solutions, making advanced treatments more accessible and affordable. 

Icanheal has raised INR 15 Cr (around $1.8 Mn) in a seed funding round led by IvyCap Ventures.

9️⃣ H Company: AI agents

A Paris-based AI startup developing “multi-agent” models. Previously known as Holistic AI while in stealth.

Founders:

• Charles Kantor: Former Stanford University computational mathematics researcher.
• Laurent Sifre: Ex-Google DeepMind scientist.
• Karl Tuyls: Ex-Google DeepMind scientist.
• Daan Wierstra: Ex-Google DeepMind scientist.
• Julien Perolat: Ex-Google DeepMind scientist.

Problem They Solve: H Company aims to develop advanced AI models, specifically “agentic” AI, which can autonomously break down tasks into multiple steps and execute them. This approach seeks to enhance AI’s reasoning, planning, and collaboration capabilities, addressing limitations in current AI systems.

In August 2024, three of the five co-founders—Karl Tuyls, Daan Wierstra, and Julien Perolat—departed the company due to “operational differences.” This leaves Charles Kantor and Laurent Sifre to lead H Company. Despite these changes, the company continues to have the full support of its investors and strategic partners.

One of H’s flagship products is Runner H, an AI agent designed to automate complex, multi-step web tasks through simple natural language commands. This tool aims to streamline processes like web testing and process automation, reducing the need for manual intervention. As of November 2024, Runner H is available in private beta, with interested users encouraged to join the waitlist.

🔟 Seaport Therapeutics: Treating anxiety and depression

Founders:

• Daphne Zohar: Co-founder of Karuna Therapeutics and founding CEO of PureTech Health.
• Dr. Steven Paul: Former CEO of Karuna Therapeutics and former Executive Vice President for Science and Technology at Eli Lilly and Company.
• Dr. Michael Chen: Former Head of Innovation at PureTech Health.

Problem They Solve: Seaport Therapeutics addresses the limitations of current neuropsychiatric treatments, such as poor oral bioavailability and significant side effects. By leveraging their proprietary Glyph™ platform, they aim to develop novel antidepressants and anxiolytics that are more effective and have fewer adverse effects. 

The startup raised $100 million in Series A financing in April 2024 and an additional $225 million in an oversubscribed Series B round in October 2024 to advance their clinical-stage pipeline and Glyph™ platform.

Conclusion. Startups to watch in 2025

While AI, personalization and sustainable tech dominate headlines, success depends on pragmatic implementation that solves actual business problems. The winners will be those who cut through the hype to build solutions that work.

Be sure to check out fintech, digital health, an AI trends for 2025:

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3. 19 digital health trends for 2025 
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