Navigating the New Era of Business Growth

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, understanding what drives exceptional growth has never been more critical. Our Hypergrowth Startups Report combines exclusive insights from six industry thought leaders—including prominent startup founders and venture capitalists—with robust data analysis from Pitchbook on fundraising trends, deal flow patterns, and market dynamics.

This report reveals a dramatic shift in the startup ecosystem: AI is fundamentally transforming business models, investment strategies are becoming more concentrated, and unicorns are achieving remarkable valuations with leaner teams than ever before. From Singapore's surprising emergence as a global startup hub to the growing prominence of strategic partnerships over traditional funding, we uncover the key factors reshaping how tomorrow's market leaders are being built.

What You'll Discover Inside:

• The Current State of Startup Growth: funding trends, how funding has evolved over the years, and how AI, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha shape investment decisions.
• The Anatomy of a Fast-Growing Startup: see the numbers behind the fastest-growing startups, how VCs predict and evaluate growth rates, and the role AI has in impacting startup growth
• The Fastest Growing Startups & List of Top Unicorns: see who are the fastest growing startups and download the top 100 unicorns list. Then discover how energy has overtaken IT and B2B as the fastest-growing sector, while software dominates across verticals and Singapore emerges as the new global innovation hub, surpassing traditional centers like San Francisco.
• Exploring Hypergrowth Tech Companies: read four case studies on startups that are making waves and setting trends: Clay, G2, Goldcast, and Stan.
• The Future of Startup Growth: what are the future growth areas for startups, and where should you place your bets?

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Key Insights

1. AI is creating a fundamental shift in business models and growth strategies:  AI and machine learning businesses lead the market with 34 of the 100 fast-growing companies by post-valuation, representing 55% of the IT sector. “We're now seeing and starting to ride what is likely the biggest wave ever to hit the tech industry as we enter the age of AI. We've seen thousands of new gen AI-fueled products listed on G2 in over 30 new AI software categories that did not exist three years ago.” Godard Abel, Co-founder and CEO, G2

2. The market is consolidating into fewer, larger deals with strategic focus: The average deal size increased 40% from 2023 to 2024, while monthly deal count dropped 50% from 20,000 to 10,000, suggesting that investors are making fewer, bigger bets.

3. Strategic partnerships are replacing traditional funding models: The average joint venture averages $9.9 billion in deal size, a full 4X larger than the typical buyout or leveraged buyout. “Strategic partnerships, in conjunction with strategic investments, provide much more in the form of product partnership, go-to-market via partner ecosystems, and brand impact than pure financial investments.” Godard Abel, Co-founder and CEO, G2

4. Geographical diversification is transforming the startup landscape: Singapore is home to 6% of the world's fastest-growing startups, surpassing traditional tech hubs like San Francisco (5%) and London (4%).

5. B2B and technology companies continue to dominate high-growth spaces, with traditional sectors showing surprising strength: B2B products and services have the third-highest growth rate at 35%, following closely behind energy (37%) and IT (36%). Together, IT and B2B combined represented nearly half of all exits in 2024. Across verticals, the software industry led the way, with 42% of 2024's fastest-growing startups.

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6. Unicorns are being built with dramatically leaner teams: "In the next few years, we're going to see our first unicorn with one employee." Mark Roberge, Co-founder, Stage 2 Capital

7. The exit landscape is dominated by M&As rather than IPOs: 43% of exits in 2024 were traditional mergers and acquisitions. Buyouts were the second most common exit (31%). IPOs only made up 6% of exits last year.

8. Sustainable growth rates are replacing the "growth at all costs" mentality: "When you're up for acquisition in 2030, no one will ask how fast you grew in 2025. There have been so many businesses that had flat years, refound product-market fit, scaled, and became unicorns." Mark Roberge, Co-founder, Stage 2 Capital

9. Successful unicorns embrace narrow market focus over broad appeals: “The most counterintuitive decision we made was to deliberately shrink our market focus. Many thought we were crazy, but this focus was crucial.” Varun Anand, Co-founder, Clay

10. AI is transforming internal operations as much as products: “It might be more important to innovate on your internal operations than on your product offering. The future organization can break any function — go-to-market, marketing, sales, customer support, finance, engineering — into mini-tasks accomplished by mini AI agents.” Mark Roberge, Co-founder, Stage 2 Capital

11. Series B and C investments are seeing the strongest growth: Series B and C companies saw a sharp increase in average capital invested per deal from 2023 to 2024, suggesting that investors are looking to fund more-established startups. 

12. Exceptional customer service is becoming a growth strategy: “Why have we gone super viral in our growth? Because we recognize that our customers are our best salespeople.” John Hu, Founder and CEO, Stan