Startups are being built faster than ever. Cursor: $4M to $150M ARR in 12mos Midjourney: 0 to $200M ARR in 36mos Glean: 0 to $100M ARR in 36mos ElevenLabs: 0 to $100M ARR in 24mos Lovable: 0 to $17M ARR in 3mos Mercor: 0 to $70M ARR in 24mos Bolt: 0 to $40M ARR in 4.5mos
Real situation of the revenue versus investment for each startup, based on user-provided ARR figures (only Midjourney’s $200M ARR confirmed) and publicly available investment data as of 06:17 PM PDT on Monday, March 10, 2025. Cursor ◦ ARR: $4M to $150M in 12 months ◦ Revenue: ~$77M ◦ Investment: $24M ◦ Net: +$53M Midjourney ◦ ARR: $0 to $200M in 36 months ◦ Revenue: ~$300M ◦ Investment: $250M ◦ Net: +$50M Glean ◦ ARR: $0 to $100M in 36 months ◦ Revenue: ~$150M ◦ Investment: $250M ◦ Net: -$100M ElevenLabs ◦ ARR: $0 to $100M in 24 months ◦ Revenue: ~$100M ◦ Investment: $109M ◦ Net: -$9M Lovable ◦ ARR: $0 to $17M in 3 months ◦ Revenue: ~$2.125M ◦ Investment: Unknown (Bumble) ◦ Net: Not calculable Mercor ◦ ARR: $0 to $70M in 24 months ◦ Revenue: ~$70M ◦ Investment: $135.6M ◦ Net: -$65.6M Bolt ◦ ARR: $0 to $40M in 4.5 months ◦ Revenue: ~$7.5M ◦ Investment: >$1.2B ◦ Net: >-$1.1925B
Yes what has happened is the time to launch and scale has gone down dramatically in this age of AI. But there is a curious case of "curiosity revenue" as part of this rapid scale. With new products coming in, people are constantly looking to try out and get newer experiences. However this will settle down later in the time.
Would be curious to see a list of startups that went from ~$100M ARR to $0 in 12 months too. Not trying to be snarky btw, genuinely asking.
I'm curious about the coding companies on how they determine the Annual part, Recurring part.. what kind of companies want to buy lovable, replit, cursor subscription to augment/replace their codebases with AI? Knowing that development is just one aspect , how do these tools allow for maintenance, ops? Also, as codebases get big and unweildy maintaining purely AI generated code is already challenging. How do these companies see themselves using these tools for 5, 10 years? Is this valuation sustainable?
Interesting, but behind all the growth, an important factor is also funding, how much money they got and how much money they burnt to get these results...
What's next here
And the fact that with such small teams is crazy!
It is a fast journey, like a rollercoaster. That past 36 month it went upwards... Though I have still the impression it is very risky, unstable, fluctual, moving,... That is exciting.
Cursor achieved this remarkable revenue milestones with a team of just 30 employees.
Building Xelec | Operating on the crossroads of Semiconductors, Electronics & AI | [email protected]
1dSuch narratives are mostly half-baked, ignoring the actual realities of building great products, and companies, and go on to add unnecessary pressure on founders trying to build something good. These are good linkedin attention grabbing posts but let's try not to keep repeating these half-baked narratives.