These AI startups are growing revenue at faster and faster rates

As companies old and new rush to capitalize on AI, many AI startups say their revenue is not only growing but accelerating rapidly, helping them reach their next milestones in shorter time frames.

The following list of startups have reported a pattern of such flywheel growth. One thing to note is that the underlying metrics used by these companies differ, even if they use the term “ARR.” Some may refer to annualized recurring revenue (ARR), or revenue under contract from a paying customer, but not yet billed. Some refer to annualized run-rate earnings, or project annual income by calculating twelve months of earnings continuing at the rate of the most recent month. Others refer to “committed ARR,” or signed contracts from customers not yet onboarded. In the case of Gusto, it reported actual sales over the past twelve months.

Nevertheless, each of these startups, listed in reverse chronological order of when their ARR growth was made public, reports that their revenue growth is accelerating, however they define it. To be fair, there are many more fast-growing AI startups than we mention here, but we’ll limit this list to those that are hitting revenue milestones at an increasingly rapid pace.

Mercor: On Monday, Brendan Foody, co-founder and CEO of Mercor, said: announced that the company surpassed $2 billion in annualized gross sales in June – just four months after reaching the $1 billion milestone. The less than three-year-old company, which hires domain experts to train and refine AI models, said that it reached a $500 million run rate in September.

Anthropic: In recent months, this model maker’s revenues have risen so historically that the entire AI sector has been fascinated by it. In late May, Anthropic announced that it had surpassed $47 billion in revenue, a milestone that came less than two months after the company reported that the same metric exceeded revenue. $30 billion. The company said it has a $9 billion turnover return at the end of 2025, higher than reported $4 billion in July 2025.

Sierra: After reaching its first $100 million in ARR in seven quarters, Sierra – which builds AI customer service agents for businesses – says it took just two more quarters to add another $100 million, co-founder and CEO Bret Taylor announced end of May.

collect: In May, Glean announced it had surpassed $300 million in ARR. While it cost the seven-year-old company AI startup nine months to double the ARR from $100 million to $200 million, the company says it took just six months to grow that metric from $200 million to $300 million.

enthusiasm: The 14-year-old HR tech startup announced in May that revenue has increased in each of the past five quarters. The company, which was last valued at $9.3 billion in early 2022, also reported that it surpassed $1 billion in the past 12 months. Gusto’s revenue increase shows that it’s not just AI-native companies that are seeing their revenue growth boost by integrating the technology.

Clio: This 18-year-old provider of legal practice management software saw a surge in revenue after integrating AI into its offering in 2023. The company surpassed $200 million in ARR in mid-2024, doubled that figure late last year and recently announced ARR of $500 million.