AI boom wipes out hundreds of pre‑ChatGPT unicorns

More than 220 former unicorns have lost their billion‑dollar valuations as the AI boom redirects global venture capital toward a tiny group of frontier AI companies. Startups that last raised in 2021 are now worth 68 percent less on average, with SaaS firms hit hardest as generative AI and no‑code agentic tools erode the value of traditional software subscriptions. Capital has not disappeared but consolidated, with OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI absorbing most of the $255.5 billion raised by AI startups in Q1 2026. Many pre‑ChatGPT companies now face down rounds, stalled IPO prospects, or acquisition at a fraction of their former valuations unless they can rapidly pivot to AI‑native architectures.

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