2025's New Crypto Unicorns: 8 Companies Across Payments, AI, and Other Sectors Make the List
In 2025, despite a severe market downturn with a 41% drop in funded projects, eight crypto companies achieved unicorn status (valued over $1 billion), reflecting key industry trends.
**Nous Research** focuses on decentralized AI, raising $50M at a $1B valuation led by Paradigm.
**RedotPay**, a Hong Kong-based stablecoin payment firm, raised over $194M across three rounds, processing $10B+ annually.
**Kalshi**, a compliant prediction market platform, raised $1.85B, reaching a $11B valuation, with trading volume surging 1108% to $23.8B.
**Lighter**, a decentralized perpetual exchange, raised $68M at a $1.5B valuation and launched its token LIT.
**Flying Tulip**, an all-in-one DeFi protocol by Andre Cronje, raised $200M with unique investor redemption rights.
**Sygnum**, a regulated Swiss crypto bank, raised $58M, exceeding a $1B valuation.
**Tempo**, a high-performance Layer-1 for payments developed by Stripe and Paradigm, raised $500M.
**Zama**, a privacy protocol using fully homomorphic encryption, raised $57M at a $1B+ valuation and conducted a token sale.
These companies highlight growth in AI, payments, DeFi, and privacy solutions amid a challenging market.
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