So what’s next for startups and unicorns? Expect to see even more investment in SaaS and B2B, especially in the AI/ML space as businesses seek to add efficiencies and streamline their operations. Gaming, a massive $455 billion industry, will continue to grow. As traditional industries like health care and energy invest in modernization, we’ll see more tech investment that will create B2B SaaS value as well.

What’s top of mind for investors? “AI-powered search, agents, and infrastructure, as well as new ways Gen Z and Gen Alpha interact with technology. Next-gen engineering software is also an area we’re spending time on,” says Laura McGinnis. But she predicts there will be challenges. “Big Tech is shipping again. Startups announce a product, and OpenAI launches the same thing the next day. Navigating this dynamic while maintaining differentiation and defensibility will be key.”

Some sectors saw unexpected but impressive growth in 2024, such as commercial services (a 30% average growth rate among the fastest-growing companies) and consumer durables (29% average growth rate). Health care represented four out of the 10 fastest-growing industry groups in 2024 — health care devices and supplies (25% growth rate), health care technology systems (23%), health care services (23%), and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology — and is poised for another impressive year in 2025.

Strategic areas of focus for high-growth startups

As investors become more judicious about where to invest their capital and startups experience progressively longer journeys to reach unicorn status, founders hoping to grow should focus on the things they can control.

Here are our suggestions for the best levers of growth in 2025 and beyond:

Lean, AI-powered GTM tech stacks

Evaluate and consolidate your startup tech stack to ensure that your business is operating as smoothly as possible. Companies that run better grow better, and business tools that automate and speed up processes are a necessity. Customer expectations are higher than ever, and businesses that are run out of a disjointed and fragmented tech stack simply can’t hope to meet them.

Not only will these businesses waste valuable time and resources struggling to cobble their systems together, their customers’ experiences will fall through the cracks when their tech stack inevitably leaves gaps in the customer journey. Today’s investors are seeking out companies that have proven, stable growth — and streamlined operations that fuel a top-notch customer experience are the foundation of growth.

“To fuel growth, I’ve learned it’s important to build a scalable go-to-market organization with repeatable processes and systems,” says Godard Abel.

Ultra-efficient, AI-agent-driven, cross-functional startup operations

“It might be more important to innovate on your internal operations than on your product offering,” says Mark Roberge. “This insight was largely inspired by Scott Belsky, HBS grad and Chief Product Officer at Adobe. The future organization can break any function — go-to-market, marketing, sales, customer support, finance, engineering — into mini-tasks accomplished by mini AI agents. It starts with an ICP definition by one agent, which hands off to another agent that finds 50 accounts that fit the ICP, to another that identifies the four applicable contacts at each account, to another that devises personalized outreach, and so on.

When you hit tasks that agents can't do, like enterprise-level discovery calls, humans step in. This creates a workflow where agents hand off information, with humans conducting only the tasks agents can't do, while training these generic agents to your specific context. This will challenge functional boundaries. Those boundaries exist between marketing, sales, and customer support because people have limitations — you can't find someone good at all that. But when 80% is done by agents, you can eliminate those boundaries, which would be better for the business and the customer. Disruptive startup models with a vision to work cross-functionally would be very difficult for incumbents with function-specific data and tech to match."

Evolving leadership teams and structures

Roberge thinks that the AI-agent model will affect fast-growing startup leadership teams. “The C-suite of the future might look more like ops leaders than traditional functional leaders. They'll be managing a paradigm where agents do the frontline work and humans operate behind the scenes.”

And Abel has seen how scaling has changed their leadership team needs. “As the founder and CEO, I cannot take on everything I did when we were a small startup,” he reflects. “Every stage of growth requires leadership and processes to scale. For instance, once you reach a certain point, bringing on mature, experienced C-suite leaders is critical. In the past year, we brought an incredible new CRO, Eric Gilpin, and CMO Sydney Sloan, who have experience scaling growth companies to public scale and beyond.”

Selling into global markets

While California is still home to the most active investor headquarters, representing 28% of the venture firms with the most investments, international investors are the second-largest geography at 23%. New York and “other” U.S.-based firms are tied at 13% each. The growth of tech hubs outside of California and New York also signals a diversified talent market and the ability of companies to grow from the city that makes sense for them. Entering a new market just for the sake of it is never wise, but the geography of growth in 2025 means that companies no longer need to confine their search for investors or employees to the California or New York markets.

Driving brand awareness by building in public

“Initially, you should build in public because it'll get you your first customers way faster,” shares John Hu, founder and CEO of Stan. “You have a brand that you compound that no one else has. If you're worried about giving away your secrets, then you're not good enough. People can copy you all they want. And you can out-execute them. Outwork them. Outcare about your customers.”

Multi-product growth and TAM expansion

“Investors care a lot more about how you are expanding your TAM after you have proven out your initial wedge or product,” says Kothandaraman. “This is because the growth rate, NRR metrics at scale can only be achieved if you are a multi-product company and not a point solution.”