Capital is concentrating in AI across the stack—agents, vertical workflows, and infrastructure—while investors demand clearer paths to unit economics, governance, and defensibility. Venture funding into AI reached record share in 2025 and is setting up 2026 as a scale-and-selectivity year. The big themes for 2026 Where dollars are flowing Opportunity map (examples) What investors want … Read more
Here are 10 high‑signal startups across layers of the AI stack—chosen for traction, technical edge, and market timing—along with why they matter this year. How this list was constructed What to watch in 2026 How to evaluate any AI startup quickly Bottom line: 2026’s standouts pair technical leverage with trust and distribution—mixing open models, agentic … Read more
AI startups win by compressing time from idea to outcome—using off‑the‑shelf models, agentic workflows, and narrow domain knowledge to solve painful, costly problems for specific users—then layering data, trust, and distribution to scale. Why small beats big right now Playbook that works in 2025 Moats beyond the model GTM that compounds India and emerging markets … Read more
2026 will be defined by AI that acts, not just chats: multi‑agent systems executing end‑to‑end workflows, multimodal models embedded across devices, and vertical solutions tuned to industry data—backed by new chips, smarter data pipelines, and stricter governance. Agentic systems mature Multimodal by default On‑device and embedded AI Vertical AI beats generic AI Data: synthetic, private, … Read more
AI‑first SaaS will mint the next wave of unicorns by packaging agentic AI into workflow‑native applications with proprietary data, clear ROI, and defensible go‑to‑market, as investors publish new benchmarks and maps for what “great” looks like in 2025.Independent rankings and reports show momentum across agentic AI, vertical AI, and infrastructure/data layers, highlighting categories and traits … Read more
AI SaaS “soonicorns” are clustering around applied GenAI, developer infrastructure, and vertical automation, fueled by concentrated VC flows and marketplace GTM; watching late‑stage lists, growth signals, and funding velocity helps identify the next cohort likely to cross the billion‑dollar mark in 6–24 months. Independent trackers and lists point to a rising share of AI among … Read more
AI‑powered SaaS can unlock outsized development gains by compressing costs, expanding access, and improving decision quality across public services and high‑impact sectors like agriculture, health, education, MSMEs, logistics, and energy. The winning formula in emerging markets is not “mega models everywhere,” but reliable, low‑latency, low‑cost systems of action: localized data and languages, small‑first models at … Read more
Introduction: From software that serves to software that thinksThe software industry is entering a structural shift: SaaS is becoming AI-powered at its core. For two decades, cloud software digitized workflows and centralized data. Today, AI-powered SaaS does more—it reasons over that data, predicts outcomes, personalizes experiences, and increasingly acts on behalf of users. This is … Read more
Introduction: The shift from “AI features” to AI-native SaaSSaaS is entering its most transformative era since the move to cloud. What began as isolated “AI features” has matured into AI-native platforms that reason over data, personalize every interaction, compress workflows into a click, and, increasingly, take action on behalf of users. In 2025 and beyond, … Read more