For the past decade, the archetypal founder was creeping up from someone in their 20s to someone a bit older. The average age of a “unicorn” founder—an entrepreneur who builds a startup valued at more than $1 billion—had steadily climbed to 33 by 2024, as investors gravitated toward seasoned veterans to navigate a complex market. However, a new report by global venture capital firm Antler, looking closely at the unicorn phenomenon, suggests the artificial intelligence (AI) boom is quickly reversing this trend, empowering a new generation of twenty-somethings to build massive companies at unprecedented speeds.
According to Antler’s “The Anatomy of Greatness,” released on Jan. 7, the arrival of generative AI has created a distinct before and after in the startup ecosystem. While the broader founder population is aging, the average age of AI unicorn founders has plummeted from a peak of 40 in 2020 to just 29 in 2024.
“We’re seeing that potentially 25 is the new 30,” Fridtjof Berge, cofounder and chief business officer at Antler, told Fortune in an interview. “There’s just for smart people now [the ability] to use a lot of the tools presented to them … perhaps you need to rely less on networks or less on sector-specific expertise.”
