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2025 CNBC Disruptor 50: Here are the companies leading a new era of AI breakthroughs and riches

This year’s Disruptor 50 list, topped by Anduril in the No. 1 spot, and then OpenAI, showcases 50 companies that are challenging the status quo and using technology (most often, AI) to transform a range of industries.

What’s particularly notable about this year’s list is how the sectors represented illustrate key trends not just in technology and VC, but also in politics and society. This is the first time in the 13 years of the Disruptor 50 list that it’s been topped by a defense tech company. The defense tech sector isn’t just represented by Anduril, with Flock Safety, Saronic Technologies, and Shield AI also making the 2025 list.

Their scope and scale demonstrate a rising trend. The four companies have a combined value of more than $45 billion and have raised almost $10 billion from investors. They have geographic diversity – all are headquartered outside Silicon Valley. And their focuses are varied. Flock Safety (No. 7 on this year’s list) makes security hardware and software. Saronic (No. 19) builds unmanned maritime vessels. Shield AI (No. 38) is an autonomous drone company.

Beyond the companies focused on building physical methods of defense, there is also Abnormal AI (No. 25), a cybersecurity company playing a key role in protecting systems from attacks that prey on human behavioral weaknesses. Gecko Robotics (No. 30) deploys its robots to capture data about the integrity of critical assets, including aircraft carriers, naval ships, and missile silos. 

The sector’s growth is expected to accelerate thanks to a surge of funding. Last week, Anduril announced a new $2.5 billion round of funding at a valuation — $30.5 billion — that is double the valuation of its previous round of funding. Saronic and Shield AI have also closed major fundraising rounds in 2025, according to Pitchbook; $600 million in Saronic’s case.

Igor Gnedo, Antonina Lepore & Adrianne Paerels

AI infrastructure company Scale AI (No. 28) secured a landmark deal last August with the Department of Defense’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office to advance AI capabilities for the U.S. military. Scale AI also announced a new multi-million dollar deal with the DoD in March to help with “Thunderforge,” an initiative to develop AI agents for U.S. military planning and operations that also includes Anduril.

The surge in funding comes as President Trump has proposed an increase in defense spending, with a focus on modernizing military capabilities and opening opportunities beyond the legacy defense sector. There is also an increasing focus on dual-use technologies: Anduril took over Microsoft’s augmented reality headset program that was in the works with the military, and then at the end of May announced a deal with Meta to create VR and AR devices for use by the Army.

Along with the rise of military tech, the explosion in generative AI’s capabilities is driving the transformation of a range of sectors, from farming to law and robotics. Across the list, there are 17 enterprise tech companies, seven fintechs, four health-care companies, four in food/agriculture, and three each in transportation and biotech. 

More coverage of the 2025 CNBC Disruptor 50

AI-focused investments and higher valuations are on full display up and down this year’s Disruptor 50 list. The 13th annual Disruptor 50 class is valued at $798 billion, far more than last year’s $436 billion total, due in large part to OpenAI’s $300 billion valuation. The total amount the companies have raised increased to $127 billion, up from $70 billion last year.

It’s clear that the generative AI revolution has transformed the startup ecosystem as well as the list, with 20 newcomers this year. Only 11 companies on this year’s list were Disruptors before the launch of ChatGPT, and many in that group — including Anduril, Databricks, and Canva — have succeeded because of their embrace of gen AI.

More than two-thirds of companies on this year’s D50 list — 38 companies — said that AI is “critical to their business,” up from 34 last year. And 21 of this year’s companies say generative AI is their essential technology, up from 13 last year.

This reflects venture capital’s increasing focus on AI: about 58% of global VC dollars invested in the first quarter went into AI and machine learning startups, while in North America, 70% of deal value went into AI and machine learning startups. And the funding numbers continue to grow, with $73 billion raised in the first quarter, more than half of last year’s total, though that’s largely due to OpenAI’s $40 billion round, led by SoftBank.

AI is being used in a range of diverse use cases by Disruptors, including law (Harvey), fighting crime (Flock Safety), and in the doctor’s office (Abridge and Rad AI). But the sector with the most companies on this year’s Disruptor 50 list is enterprise AI, with 17 companies (up from 14 last year). These range from Databricks, which helps companies mine their data, to Glean, which enables its customers to build custom AI apps and custom search tools, to collaborative workspace and note-taking tool Notion.

Design platform Canva has increasingly invested in AI and made AI features the center of its toolkit. With partnerships with ChatGPT and Anthropic (No. 4 on this year’s list), and the acquisition of several AI-powered companies in the past year, CEO Melanie Perkins is expected to take her $32 billion company public in the next year. “We’ve continuously been investing in this space with magic recommendations, and so forth, over the years with generative AI,” said Perkins. “Being able to have that magic embedded as you’re writing your documents and your presentations, being able to have Canva AI … it’s really been an extension of that initial promise that we’ve had to customers, to empower the world, to design, to continue to put the latest to greatest technology in their hands.” 

Perkins says Canva has a three-pronged approach to AI: integrating the best products that are available, deeply investing in the areas needed to bring the expertise to their customers, and having a platform where the newest AI products and other apps can come onto Canva and be accessed by the community.

She is optimistic about the potential for AI to be a democratizing force for Canva’s 220 million customers around the world. “I think it’s critically important that as the world of humanity, we use AI to truly lift up every single person who lives here, to help everyone have their basic human needs being met,” she said. “And I think there is a huge opportunity for us to be dreaming bigger about what we want with technology accelerating. I think there is a huge opportunity to rethink what we’re doing with it and ensuring that it’s serving our needs.”

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Texas Instruments’ stock falls on weak forecast

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Texas Instruments' stock falls on weak forecast

The Texas Instruments headquarters in Dallas, Texas, on Jan. 21, 2024.

N. Johnson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Texas Instruments reported second-quarter results on Tuesday that beat analysts’ expectations for revenue and earnings. But the stock fell in extended trading due to a third-quarter forecast that missed estimates.

Here’s how the chipmaker did versus LSEG consensus estimates:

  • Earnings per share: $1.41 vs. $1.35 expected
  • Revenue: $4.45 billion vs. $4.36 billion expected

Texas Instruments said it expects current-quarter earnings between $1.36 and $1.60 per share, while analysts were looking for $1.50 per share. The company forecast revenue of $4.45 billion to $4.8 billion, for a midpoint of $4.625 billion. Analysts were expecting revenue of $4.59 billion.

Revenue increased 16% in the second quarter from $3.82 billion in the same period a year earlier. Sales in the company’s analog chip business, its largest, rose 18% to $3.5 billion, surpassing the StreetAccount estimate of $3.39 billion for the segment.

Net income rose 15% to $1.3 billion, or $1.41 per share, from $1.13 billion, or $1.22 per share, a year ago.

Texas Instruments is a key supplier of legacy semiconductors for automotive and industrial uses.

As of Tuesday’s close, Texas Instruments shares were up 15% for the year on broader market optimism for chips. In June, the company said it would spend $60 billion to expand chipmaking factories in Texas and Utah, a move that was praised by the Trump administration in its push to bring more technology manufacturing to the U.S.

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Trump met with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos at the White House last week, sources say

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Trump met with Amazon's Jeff Bezos at the White House last week, sources say

Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon, takes the stage during The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit, at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on Dec. 4, 2024.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

President Donald Trump met with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos at the White House last week, CNBC has learned.

The meeting between Trump and Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, lasted for more than an hour, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the conversation was private.

Amazon declined to comment on the meeting. A spokesperson for Bezos didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The nature and exact timing of the visit couldn’t be learned.

A Gulfstream G700 private jet linked to Bezos landed in Dulles, Virginia, outside Washington, on July 14 before taking off the next day, according to Jack Sweeney, a programmer who tracks flight data from jets owned by Elon Musk, Bill Gates and others.

Bezos, who also owns rocket company Blue Origin, has cozied up to Trump during his second term in the White House. Trump frequently hurled insults at Bezos during his first term, largely because of the Amazon founder’s ownership of The Washington Post.

Read more CNBC Amazon coverage

Bezos joined a swath of tech CEOs on stage at Trump’s inauguration in January after donating $1 million to his inaugural fund.

The Trump administration praised Bezos for his decision to revamp the Post’s editorial pages to focus on “personal liberties and free markets.”

In April, Trump said Bezos, who stepped down as Amazon’s CEO in 2021, was “terrific” and “a good guy” after the billionaire assured Trump that the e-commerce giant had no plans to display tariff-related surcharges on its website.

More recently, Bezos has reportedly sought to capitalize on the dramatic falling-out between Trump and Musk, who spent more than $250 million to help Trump win a second White House term and previously led the government-slashing initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency.

Bezos competes with Musk, who is the CEO of SpaceX, through Blue Origin and Project Kuiper, Amazon’s low-Earth orbit satellite internet venture.

After Trump and Musk’s relationship soured, Bezos spoke with Trump on several occasions, while Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp traveled to the White House, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The conversations centered in part on government contracts, according to the Journal.

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Amazon to buy AI company Bee that makes wearable listening device

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Amazon to buy AI company Bee that makes wearable listening device

Amazon logo on a brick building exterior in San Francisco on Aug. 20, 2024.

Smith Collection | Gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images

Amazon plans to acquire wearables startup Bee AI, the company confirmed, in the latest example of tech giants doubling down on generative artificial intelligence.

Bee, based in San Francisco, makes a $49.99 wristband that appears similar to a Fitbit smartwatch. The device is equipped with AI and microphones that can listen to and analyze conversations to provide summaries, to-do lists and reminders for everyday tasks.

Bee CEO Maria de Lourdes Zollo announced in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday that the company will join Amazon.

“When we started Bee, we imagined a world where AI is truly personal, where your life is understood and enhanced by technology that learns with you,” Zollo wrote. “What began as a dream with an incredible team and community now finds a new home at Amazon.”

Amazon spokesperson Alexandra Miller confirmed the company’s plans to acquire Bee. The company declined to comment on the terms of the deal.

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Amazon has introduced a flurry of AI products, including its own set of Nova models, Trainium chips, a shopping chatbot and a marketplace for third-party models called Bedrock.

The company has also overhauled its Alexa voice assistant, released more than a decade ago, with AI capabilities as Amazon looks to chip away at the success of rivals such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini.

Ring, the smart home security company owned by Amazon, has also looked to introduce generative AI in some of its products.

Amazon previously experimented in the wearables space through a health and fitness-focused product called Halo. It sunset the Halo in 2023 as part of a broader cost-cutting review.

Other tech companies have launched AI-infused consumer hardware with mixed success.

There’s the Rabbit R1, a small square gadget that costs $199 and uses an OpenAI model to answer questions, as well as the AI pin developed by Humane, which later sold to HP.

Meta‘s Ray-Ban smart glasses have grown in popularity since the first version was released in 2021.

OpenAI in May acquired Jony Ive‘s AI devices startup io for roughly $6.4 billion. The company reportedly plans to develop a screen-free device.

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