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- New HubSpot for Startups report shows slow and steady wins the race in the AI era
# New HubSpot for Startups report shows slow and steady wins the race in the AI era
[HubSpot Communications](https://www.hubspot.com/company-news/author/hubspot-communications)
Updated: September 15, 2026
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New HubSpot for Startups report shows slow and steady wins the race in the AI era
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6:54
- Balanced scaling strategies and joint ventures deliver outsized value over rapid growth strategies
- Singapore surpasses San Francisco as top city for startup innovation
- M&A emerges as more viable exit strategy compared to IPO
Today, HubSpot for Startups, our program that helps early-stage companies scale with education, discounted software, and community, released its annual 2025 Hypergrowth Startup Index, assessing the top 100 fastest growing companies and unicorns.*
Commissioned in partnership with PitchBook, the report draws insights from HubSpot's unique position in the startup ecosystem, where 24% of all unicorns use HubSpot.
The 2025 Growth Index highlights a critical shift in the startup ecosystem: success is no longer defined by rapid growth and massive funding rounds, but by sustainable business models, strategic partnerships, and meaningful customer relationships. This is shown in the numbers: while monthly deal counts have decreased 50% from 20,000 to 10,000 since 2021, average deal sizes have increased nearly 43% from $35M in 2023 to $50M in 2024, signaling investors' focus on sustainable growth over rapid expansion.
From geographic shifts to changing exit patterns, several key trends are reshaping how startups operate and scale in today's market:
### __Singapore emerges as the new innovation capital__
For the first time, Singapore surpassed San Francisco as the city with the highest concentration of fast-growing startups. Combined with China's emerging presence (in Shanghai and Beijing), Asia has become a new epicenter for innovation, though other hubs like London continue to show strong performance.
### __AI reshapes the startup ecosystem with focus on sustainable growth__
Clay\** is a success story that exemplifies the new growth trajectory for AI startups. A HubSpot customer, Clay is an AI-powered platform that helps go-to-market teams enrich their data and automate personalized outreach. They achieved unicorn status ($1.25B valuation) by focusing on sustainable growth rather than rapid expansion. Clay experienced 10x revenue growth in 2022, another 10x in 2023, and 6x growth in 2024, reaching over 5,000 customers including category leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic.
"The most counterintuitive decision we made was to deliberately shrink our market focus," said Varun Anand, co-founder of Clay. "We didn't just follow the standard startup playbook; we wrote our own. Looking back, our success wasn't about following best practices. It was about having the conviction to make decisions that were right for Clay, even when they seemed counterintuitive to others."
Venture capital firms are validating this strategy as well. As Mark Roberge, Co-founder at Stage 2 Capital puts it, "When you're up for acquisition in 2030, no one will ask how fast you grew in 2025. There have been so many businesses that had flat years, refound product-market fit, scaled, and became highly valued companies."
### __Traditional sectors show surprising strength__
While AI-focused startups capture headlines with massive valuations, traditional sectors are actually growing faster, with the energy sector topping growth rates at 37%, slightly outpacing IT at 36% and B2B companies at 35%.
Commercial services companies lead the way with an average 30% growth rate, outpacing more technology-focused sectors. Consumer durables aren't far behind at 29%, and healthcare is well-represented in the industry groups with the fastest growth rates, making up four of the top 10 industry groups with average growth rates between 22% and 25%.
"This data validates what we've been seeing across our startup ecosystem," said Laurence Butler, Head of HubSpot for Startups. "Companies that focus on building strong customer relationships from day one are outperforming those that prioritize rapid scaling above all else."
### __Strategic partnerships deliver outsized value as early-stage funding shows resilience__
In today's more conservative market, strategic partnerships are delivering outsized value. Joint ventures average $9.9B in deal size—four times larger than traditional buyout deals. Meanwhile, early-stage venture capital remains robust, representing 46% of deals in the fastest-growing segment, with seed stage maintaining stability at approximately 50 deals monthly.
"HubSpot participated in our seed investment and through the HubSpot Ventures team, we have been learning from HubSpot's product and marketing leadership as we scale our business into a multi-product platform,” said. Kishore Kothandaraman, co-founder of Goldcast. Their partnerships team have also helped us think through how to get the most from HubSpot's marketplace and partner agencies."
### __Exit patterns show mergers and acquisitions dominating over public offerings__
Mergers and acquisitions dominate the exit landscape at 43%, while initial public offerings represent just 6% of recent exits. With 3,771 public offerings in 2021 and only 1,755 in 2024, it's clear that more companies are seeking private instead of public paths to liquidity. However, there was nearly a 50% increase in public offerings between 2023 and 2024, suggesting that the public markets may be rebounding.
### __Building tomorrow's unicorns with HubSpot__
[HubSpot for Startups](https://hubspot.com/startups) provides qualifying startups with up to 75% off on our AI-powered customer platform. It also comes with access to educational resources and a global community of founders and investors.
"At G2 we've always aimed to be early adopters of the best software and AI tech to fuel our own efficient growth,” said Godard Abel, Co-founder and CEO of G2. “This has included being an early HubSpot Marketing Hub customer as well as using intuitive tools like Slack, GitHub, and Confluence to support efficient internal collaboration."\*\**
Explore all the findings from [HubSpot's 2025 Hypergrowth Startup Index](https://www.hubspot.com/startups/reports/hypergrowth-startups).
*\*This report defines “fastest-growing” as the top 100 private, investment-backed companies founded within the past three years valued at over $100 million. Unicorns are defined as privately held companies valued at over $1B. We sourced the data from* [*PitchBook Data, Inc.*](http://www.pitchbook.com/) *in February 2025, and interviewed the experts quoted throughout in February and March 2025.*
*\** \*\*\*HubSpot Ventures is an investor in Clay and G2.*
Topics:
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[AI for Startups](https://www.hubspot.com/company-news/topic/ai-for-startups)
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