Top 25 % AI startups reach $5+ million ARR in 12 months

Olivia Moore and Marc Andrusko of A16Z writes about What “Working” Means in the Era of AI Apps. It is an update to older SaaS revenue growth benchmarks for the AI era.

The takeaway is that companies (both enterprise and consumer-focused) are growing extremely fast, which partly explains knock-on effects like longer workdays/workweeks (9-9-6). At least for at least the time being.

Compared to e.g. 2023 SaaS benchmarks the median enterprise AI company is almost at the level of a top 10 % SaaS company after 9 months.

One thing with the tables is that each column is sorted individually. For Month 6 Revenue, Month 12 Revenue and Time to Series A that makes sense (I assume they correlate), but for Pre-Series A $ Raised it is likely inverted. I.e. the companies that are otherwise in the top quartile have likely raised the most, not the least, and would be in the bottom quartile in $ raised.

Author: Henrik Torstensson

Partner at Alliance VC. Investing in Nordic early-stage tech startups.

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