Startup Trends: 5 AI companies look to expand globally in 2025
Private AI companies experienced continued growth in the first half of 2025 after a surge in investor optimism in 2024.1 The five highest-valued private AI companies — OpenAI, Perplexity, Anthropic, xAI and ScaleAI — secured significant investments and made strides toward global expansion in 2025.
OpenAI, private AI research and deployment company
Founded in 2015, OpenAI is an AI research firm that has followed a not-for-profit operating model since its founding. However, OpenAI may switch to a for-profit structure later in 2025 following pressure from investors.
In April 2025, OpenAI closed a $40 billion Series F funding round at a $300 billion valuation, which is the company’s largest funding round to date and the highest valued funding round ever on record for a private technology company.2 The Softbank-led funding round included participation from global technology enterprise Microsoft and venture capital firms Coatue and Thrive. OpenAI plans to use the fresh funding to scale its computing infrastructure and invest in AI innovation.
A key focus for OpenAI is global expansion, and the company is using its Stargate supercomputer infrastructure project as a model for countries outside of the U.S. that want to democratize access to AI models. In May 2025, OpenAI launched its OpenAI for Countries program, which equips individual countries or regions with tools to build regionally based AI infrastructure.3
OpenAI’s Forge Price™ is $469.47 as of July 23, 2025, implying a valuation of $324.62 billion. The startup’s investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures and Y Combinator.
OpenAI is one of Forge’s Private Market Magnificent 7 companies.
Perplexity, a generative AI search engine
Founded in 2022, Perplexity is a Palo Alto, California-based AI startup developing generative AI search engine technology. The search engine provides citations and sources based on the most up-to-date publicly available information.
The company completed a $500 million funding round in May 2025 before adding $100 million in funding through a July 2025 extension on the Series E round, which was led by venture capital firm Accel.4 The post-Series E valuation is $18 billion, six times more than the company’s June 2024 $3 billion valuation.
In July 2025, Perplexity partnered with India-based Bharti Airtel, the country’s second-largest telecommunications company.5 Through the partnership, all 360 million Airtel subscribers will have access to a free 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription. The partnership strengthens Perplexity’s footprint in Asia after creating similar partnerships with telecom provider SK Telcom in South Korea in February 2025.6
Founded in 2022, Perplexity’s Forge Price™ is $629.49 as of July 23, 2025, implying a valuation of $18.00 billion. Notable investors include IVP, NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions), Softbank Vision Fund and Bessemer Venture Partners.
Anthropic, safety-focused generative AI technology
Founded in 2021, Anthropic is an AI research startup that raised significant capital in the first half of 2025 as it makes strategic moves toward expanding its global footprint.
In March 2025, Anthropic raised $3.5 billion in a Series E funding round extension led by venture capital firm Lightspeed Partners, which resulted in a $61.5 billion valuation.7 Soon after the funding round in April 2025, Anthropic appointed Guillaume Princen as Head of EMEA and said it plans to add new offices in the EMEA region to complement existing ones in Dublin and London.8 Princen’s appointment marks a significant step toward expanding the company’s EMEA presence as he will oversee the addition of 100 new roles at Anthropic for the region. Princen previously led fintech firm Stripe’s European operations.
In July 2025, Anthropic entered early planning stages for another funding round that has the potential to boost the company’s valuation to more than $100 billion.9 The potential new funding round is unique in that Anthropic is not actively seeking additional capital, but investors have come forward with significant offers.
As of July 23, 2025, Anthropic's Forge Price™ is $59.00 per share, implying a valuation of $64.69 billion. The company's investors include Amazon, Google, Menlo Ventures and Spark Capital.
xAI, transparent AI model startup
Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, xAI is an artificial intelligence company founded by investor Elon Musk, offering AI models to organizations and individuals. The startup is the developer of the Grok chatbot — a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini.
In July 2025, xAI closed a $10 billion debt and equity fundraise campaign led by Morgan Stanley, which includes $5 billion in debt financing and $5 billion in equity.10 xAI said it will use the fresh funds to invest in its AI solutions and expand its data infrastructure. xAI said it will expand its infrastructure footprint in the Middle East after initiating negotiations to lease two data centers in Saudi Arabia.11
Later in July 2025, xAI was awarded a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense worth up to $200 million.12 The contract will make Grok available to federal, state, local and national security employees as the department aims to increase AI adoption for national security use cases.
Founded in 2023, xAI’s Forge Price™ is $39.23 as of July 23, 2025, and implies a $90.6 billion valuation. Its investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Vy Capital, Fidelity Management and Sequoia Capital.
Scale AI, data processing for AI models
Scale AI is a privately held company that provides data processing services used in AI model training. The San Francisco, California, company was founded in 2016 and is focusing global expansion efforts on the Middle East in 2025 after announcing plans in May 2025 to create offices in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.13
Scale AI secured a $14 billion investment in July 2025 from social technology company Meta that will enable Meta to build stronger AI models.14 Through the deal, Meta has a 49% stake in Scale AI, and it consolidates the market as Meta’s competitors that were previously Scale AI customers look for alternatives.
Scale AI’s Forge Price™ is $19.64 as of July 23, 2025, and implies a $29.18 billion valuation. Its investors include Accel, Index Ventures, Tiger Global Management and Y Combinator.
Scale AI is one of Forge’s Private Market Magnificent 7 companies.
