Of 577 AI companies tracked in the 2023 and later cohort, 26 score as Thriving, 49 Likely Dead, 25 Pivoted or Absorbed, and 384 sit in the ambiguous Watchlist middle where the interesting question is the month-over-month delta, not today's score.
Lately it feels like there is a new AI startup getting funded every day. The industry is evolving so quickly that I felt like I needed to find a way to make sense of what's working and what isn't.
This started off as a tool to figure out where the startups that received funding from 2023 to 2025 are right now, and to use that to understand if there are larger shifts taking place.
The companies are mostly YC incubees. Each company is scored on seven public signals (website uptime, Wayback freshness, blog cadence, GitHub activity, hiring pulse, trusted news coverage, and curated notes), and the score maps to one of six status buckets from Thriving at the top to Likely Dead at the bottom.
Every company also carries two classification tags:
The shape of the cohort today:
Most AI startups from the 2023 to 2025 wave are neither thriving nor dead. 384 of the 577 tracked companies (67%) sit in the Watchlist middle, where the monthly delta is the real signal rather than today's score.
The full methodology, code, and raw dataset are in the GitHub repo.
What this chart shows: how the cohort concentrates when you cross the vertical a company serves (row) with where it sits in the AI stack (column). Darker cells are more companies. Hover a cell for the exact count.
Clean signals across the board. Live site, fresh Wayback, active GitHub, hiring, recent trusted press.
| # | Company | Score | Sector | Function |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cursor | 100.0 | Cross-industry | AI Agent |
| 2 | AfterQuery | 100.0 | Cross-industry | Data Infrastructure |
| 3 | Corgi Insurance | 100.0 | Finance | AI Agent |
| 4 | Giga | 100.0 | Customer Support | AI Agent |
| 5 | Mistral AI | 94.3 | Cross-industry | Foundation Models |
Thriving is dominated by Cross-industry companies (19 of 26, 73%), and the most common function is AI Agent (7, 27%). This is higher than the cohort-wide share of 50%. Every Foundation Models company that resolved signals sits at or near the top of the distribution, which tracks the capital concentration at the model layer.
Most signals positive, one or two quiet. The bulk of a working cohort sits here.
| # | Company | Score | Sector | Function |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Planbase | 77.7 | Healthcare | AI Agent |
| 2 | Latent | 77.7 | Healthcare | Foundation Models |
| 3 | Simple AI | 77.3 | Cross-industry | AI Agent |
| 4 | Glean | 76.4 | Cross-industry | Copilot / Assistant |
| 5 | Denki | 76.4 | Finance | AI Agent |
Healthy is dominated by Cross-industry companies (36 of 82, 44%), and the most common function is AI Agent (33, 40%).
Ambiguous middle. Live sites, patchy coverage. Month-over-month delta is what matters, not today's score.
| # | Company | Score | Sector | Function |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Talc | 64.1 | Healthcare | Analytics & Decisioning |
| 2 | Ohm | 64.1 | Engineering | Copilot / Assistant |
| 3 | Jasper | 61.8 | Cross-industry | Generative Product |
| 4 | Pika | 61.8 | Consumer | Generative Product |
| 5 | Soren | 61.8 | Cross-industry | Copilot / Assistant |
Watchlist is dominated by Cross-industry companies (190 of 384, 49%), and the most common function is AI Agent (155, 40%). This is the bucket most worth watching week over week. Score deltas of more than ten points between snapshots are usually where the real story lives.
Multiple negative signals but not over the cliff. Often late-stage quiet before an acquihire or wind-down.
| # | Company | Score | Sector | Function |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CareSwift | 42.3 | Healthcare | Copilot / Assistant |
| 2 | Vera Health | 42.3 | Healthcare | Analytics & Decisioning |
| 3 | Adapted | 42.3 | Healthcare | Copilot / Assistant |
| 4 | Downlink | 42.3 | Cross-industry | ML Infrastructure |
| 5 | Manifold Freight | 42.3 | Logistics | Analytics & Decisioning |
Dormant is dominated by Healthcare companies (3 of 11, 27%), and the most common function is Analytics & Decisioning (4, 36%). This is higher than the cohort-wide share of 11%. That is a heavier tilt than the cohort average of 15%.
Score under 25, or a trusted death headline in the last 180 days, or a curated shutdown marker. Triage, not verdict.
| # | Company | Score | Sector | Function |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Interlock | 64.6 | Cross-industry | Copilot / Assistant |
| 2 | Engines | 58.7 | Cross-industry | AI Agent |
| 3 | Sweep | 56.9 | Cross-industry | Copilot / Assistant |
| 4 | Continue | 56.9 | Cross-industry | Copilot / Assistant |
| 5 | Suno | 56.4 | Consumer | Generative Product |
Likely Dead is dominated by Cross-industry companies (27 of 49, 55%), and the most common function is AI Agent (14, 29%). Verify before acting on any single row. The score is a triage signal, and labels can move after one month of hiring or press activity.
Curated note captured an acquihire, acquisition, licensing deal, or rebrand. The brand is gone even if the website isn't.
| # | Company | Score | Sector | Function |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Langfuse | 76.9 | Cross-industry | ML Infrastructure |
| 2 | Codeium | 75.3 | Cross-industry | Copilot / Assistant |
| 3 | Character.AI | 66.7 | Consumer | Generative Product |
| 4 | Thyme | 64.6 | Finance | Copilot / Assistant |
| 5 | Resonance | 64.6 | Cross-industry | Generative Product |
Pivoted / Absorbed is dominated by Cross-industry companies (13 of 25, 52%), and the most common function is Generative Product (7, 28%). That is a heavier tilt than the cohort average of 12%. The curated note on each card names the corporate event. Acquihires dominate this bucket.