Silicon Valley Founders Name 29 Seed-Stage Startups to Watch
Newcomer and Felicis have released an “Emergent” list of 29 seed-stage or earlier startups recommended by prominent founders and investors, offering a snapshot of where Silicon Valley sees the next wave of AI and robotics opportunities. The selected companies span agent infrastructure, enterprise AI applications, robotics and hardware, healthcare and biotech, and creative production tools, reflecting a shift from general-purpose AI assistants to systems that execute specific, high-value tasks. A large share of the list is dedicated to infrastructure for AI agents as they begin to access corporate systems, make purchases, and act autonomously. Agentcard is building payment rails for agents, while Arrakis Security and Mnemom focus on discovering, monitoring, and auditing agent actions. Convergent and Ampersand aim to improve reliability and align agents with real business workflows, and Martian and Conway target model routing and predictive foundation models. Other companies, including Armature, Attention Engineering, Tako, and Peak, address agent observability, context capture, data access, and the need for faster software testing as AI-generated code accelerates development. Felicis founder Aydin Senkut argues that large-scale agent deployment will require identity management, security, data infrastructure, and new marketplaces for these supporting services. Several startups are applying AI to concrete workflows rather than broad assistants. Nowadays automates enterprise event planning, Hercules generates internal business software through conversational agents, and Tomo targets everyday personal tasks. Scuba is developing AI-native office tools, while SkillBench helps companies identify tasks suitable for automation and build human judgment alongside AI use. The personal assistant space, however, faces intensifying competition from OpenAI, Meta, Apple, and Google as they try to make agents the operating layer for daily life. Robotics and physical AI also feature prominently, signaling renewed investor interest after years of difficult commercialization. Enigma develops software for multiple robot platforms, Icarus Robotics explores space operations, and Agrippa Industries applies automation to maritime logistics. On the consumer hardware side, Ghost is building a screenless personal AI computer, and Mirai Labs provides on-device inference tools. More specialized entries include Alljoined, working on brain-computer interfaces, and Mistos, applying AI to power infrastructure design. Senkut emphasized that robotics progress will depend on training data, components, deployment services, and real industrial validation, not just model improvements. The list also highlights healthcare, biotech, and creative production. Almanac Health seeks to ground clinical AI in reliable medical evidence, Instance Bio accelerates large-scale molecular testing through parallel experiments, and Phylo develops open-weight models for biological research. Felicis cited Crunchbase data showing that global AI healthcare and biotech funding reached 20.2 billion dollars by late October 2026, exceeding the prior full-year total of 15.8 billion dollars. In creative industries, Cartwheel converts inputs into 3D character animation, Resin assists music arrangement, and London-based Wonder Studios uses AI for commercial production and original content. Taken together, the Emergent list suggests the next unicorns may emerge from the plumbing of autonomous AI, industry-specific workflows, and products that make machines capable of real-world execution rather than simply generating output.
