AI Agent Competition Heats Up: Who Will Lead the Next Wave?
As the ripple effects of DeepSeek continue to unfold, another Chinese AI company, Manus, has swiftly stirred discussions within the Chinese-speaking tech community. While its initial publicity may have outpaced its actual recognition in the Silicon Valley tech scene, Manus has already become a focal point among Chinese AI professionals. From its technological capabilities to its business model, from the founding team’s background to its capital strategy, discussions surrounding Manus are flooding in like a tidal wave. This phenomenon not only reflects the market's immense anticipation for emerging AI agent companies but also signals the arrival of a new era—2025 could very well be the breakthrough year for AI agents.
According to research from Silicon Valley Technology Review (SVTR) AI Database, the competitive landscape for AI agents is becoming increasingly clear. With continuous advancements in large models, AI agents are no longer just simple conversational tools; they are now deeply integrated into critical areas such as development, operations, and business decision-making, serving as key engines for efficiency enhancement and new business model creation.
In this emerging era of AI agents, which companies will emerge as the true winners? What technologies and business models should investors focus on?
Based on in-depth research on over 100 AI agent startups worldwide, Silicon Valley Technology Review has curated a list of the Top 10 Most Promising Companies, positioning them as strong contenders for the SVTR AI 100 list. If you know of high-potential companies—or if you’re leading one yourself—we invite you to share and discuss the future landscape of AI agents with us.
Top 1: Cognition
Founded in 2024 in San Francisco, Cognition develops AI chatbots capable of writing and debugging code. The company has raised $175 million in funding, reaching a valuation of $2 billion. It is backed by Founders Fund, which also led its Series A round at a previous valuation of $350 million.
Scott Wu, Co-Founder & CEO. Previously, he was the Co-Founder & CTO of Lunchclub and a software engineer at Addepar. He studied economics at Harvard University. The company’s team of 10 members has collectively won 10 IOI gold medals.
Top 2: Sana
Founded in 2016 in Stockholm, Sweden, Sana provides a platform that indexes organizational knowledge, enabling employees to access internal information efficiently. The company has raised $55 million in funding from NEA and Menlo Ventures, reaching a valuation of $500 million, with total funding of $130 million.
Sana’s clients include Merck, Novartis, Hinge Health, and Volvo.
Joel Hellermark, Founder & CEO of Sana, taught himself programming and started coding in C at 13. At 16, he founded his first company, a video recommendation engine. He was recognized by The Guardian as one of the "Top 10 People Under 35 Changing the World" during the COVID-19 pandemic. Forbes also listed Sana as one of the Top 50 AI Companies Worldwide.
Top 3: The Browser Company
Founded in 2019 in San Francisco, The Browser Company develops Arc, an AI-powered browser designed to navigate the web intelligently. The company raised $50 million in funding from Pace Capital, reaching a valuation of $550 million. Previous investors include notable figures such as Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn), Ev Williams (Medium), Dylan Field (Figma), Akshay Kothari (Notion), and Jason Warner (GitHub). The company’s total funding amounts to $128 million.
Josh Miller, Co-Founder & CEO, previously served as a board member at Patreon, an investor at Thrive Capital, and a product director in the Obama White House. He was also a product manager at Facebook and studied at Princeton University.
Top 4: Decagon
Founded in 2023 in San Francisco, Decagon leverages generative AI to create customer support agents that handle complex customer interactions. The company raised $65 million in a Series B round, with investors including Bain Capital Ventures, Elad Gil, A, Accel, BOND Capital, and ACME Capital*. The Series A round was backed by *Accel, A, Elad Gil, and angel investors such as Aaron Levie (Box CEO), Howie Liu (Airtable CEO), and Jack Altman (Lattice CEO)**, among others. The company has raised a total of $100 million.
Decagon’s AI agents are built on large language models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere, trained using enterprise data (such as operational blogs, manuals, and past customer service interactions). Companies like Bilt, Duolingo, Eventbrite, Notion, and Rippling use Decagon for customer interactions.
Jesse Zhang, Co-Founder & CEO, was previously the CEO of Lowkey (acquired by Niantic), a trader at Citadel, a software engineer at Google, and an algorithm developer at Hudson River Trading. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Computer Science in just three years.
Top 5: Emergence
Founded in 2024 in New York, Emergence is building an agent-based system capable of executing various tasks traditionally handled by knowledge workers. It leverages both first- and third-party generative AI models, including OpenAI’s GPT-4o. The company raised $97.2 million in funding from Learn Capital and secured an additional $100 million in credit lines.
Satya Nitta, Co-Founder & CEO of Emergence.ai, was previously the Co-Founder & CEO of Merlyn Mind and a researcher at IBM, where he led global AI learning solutions. He earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Top 6: /dev/agents
Founded in 2018 in San Francisco, /dev/agents develops a universal technology framework that enables AI services and agents to connect and communicate with one another. The company raised $56 million from Index Ventures, CapitalG, Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, and OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy. The current valuation is $500 million, with a total funding of $56 million.
The company aims to build a cloud-based operating system that runs on smartphones, laptops, and even cars, alongside a new UI for natural AI interaction across devices.
David Singleton, Co-Founder & CEO, was previously the CTO of Stripe for nearly 7 years and spent 11+ years at Google in leadership roles. He holds a Computer Science degree from the University of Cambridge.
The three other co-founders also have extensive OS development backgrounds:
Hugo Barra, Chief Product Officer, was VP of Android Product Management at Google and VP of Oculus at Meta.
Ficus Kirkpatrick, CTO, was an early engineer at Android and VP of AR/VR at Meta.
Nicholas Jitkoff, Chief Design Officer, was Lead Designer for Chrome OS at Google and an executive at Dropbox.
Top 7: Norm AI
Founded in 2023 in New York, Norm AI develops an AI-powered regulatory compliance platform. The company raised $27 million in a Series A round from Coatue.
Norm AI's platform translates complex regulations into machine-readable code, creating "Regulatory AI Agents" that automate compliance analysis with greater efficiency and accuracy.
John Nay, Founder & CEO, has worked on AI research for the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. He founded Brooklyn Investment Group, an AI-driven investment software firm, raising $20+ million from Morgan Stanley and TIAA Ventures. He earned a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and has conducted research at Harvard and NYU.
Top 8: Ema
Founded in 2023 in Mountain View, California, Ema is developing an AI-driven platform to automate complex enterprise workflows, allowing tasks to be completed through simple conversations. The company raised $36 million from Accel, Section 32, Prosus Ventures, Sozo Ventures, Hitachi Ventures, and Wipro Ventures.
Surojit Chatterjee, Founder & CEO, was previously the Chief Product Officer at Coinbase and a VP at Google. He has also invested in Udemy, Palantir Technologies, and TrueLayer. He holds an MBA from MIT Sloan with a focus on entrepreneurship, marketing, and finance.
Top 9: UnifyApps
Founded in 2023 in San Francisco, UnifyApps provides tools for rapid application development, business process automation, and seamless data transfer across systems. The company raised $20 million from Iconiq Growth, with total funding reaching $31 million.
Pavitar Singh, Co-Founder & CEO, was previously CTO of Sprinklr and a product leader at multiple companies. He holds an MBA in Finance, Operations, and Strategy from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon and a Computer Science degree from Dhirubhai Ambani Institute.
Top 10: Sema4.ai
Founded in 2023 in San Francisco, Sema4.ai is developing intelligent AI agents to revolutionize knowledge work. The company raised $30.05 million from Mayfield and Benchmark.
Rob Bearden, Co-Founder & CEO, previously co-founded Hortonworks, which merged with Cloudera in 2019. He has also led Docker and Cloudera, overseeing its $5.3 billion acquisition by private equity firms KKR and CDR.
This list represents the Top 10 AI Agent Startups shaping the future of AI-driven automation and intelligence.