The topic of AI has just recently started to dominate the public discourse. Despite the recent development of the topic, start-ups in the sector have already received above-average levels of funding over the past five years. Our international survey has shown that in the last five years alone, around 536 start-ups worldwide have gathered a total of 41.5 billion dollars of investments. This puts the AI sector in seventh place in our ranking of start-up sectors with the highest investment sums over the last five years.
These are the start-up sectors with the highest investment sums
So while the AI revolution continues to gain ground, other sectors are still holding their own in the top spots. The manufacturing industry is at the top. In the last five years, 322 companies have been founded worldwide, which have received a total of around 55.7 billion dollars in investments. A younger, but nowadays just as traditional sector follows: The IT industry has grown by a total of 717 companies in the last five years, which have received a total sum of around 52.7 billion dollars The healthcare sector, on the other hand, has seen a total of 50.9 billion dollars invested in a total of 683 companies, putting it in third place.
AI overtakes the automotive industry
Which sectors have already been overtaken by AI? According to our analysis, the automotive industry ranks a distant eighth with around 36.5 billion dollars for 106 companies. Investors have channelled almost five billion dollars less into this sector than into artificial intelligence. At the same time, this also means that around five times more AI start-ups have been founded in recent years than automotive companies. The energy sector follows in ninth place with a total of 184 companies founded and an investment volume of around 33.5 billion dollars. The top ten is completed by FinTechs, which have also been overtaken by AI. With 528 companies, roughly the same number of companies were founded as in the AI sector. Despite this, however, only around 31.8 billion dollars were invested into the sector. Please find a comprehensive overview of our ranking here:
Timur Göreci, Chief Revenue Officer of Orderfox Schweiz AG, comments:
"The results of our study impressively show that artificial intelligence has already taken on a central role in the start-up landscape despite its comparatively recent presence on the market. While traditional sectors such as the manufacturing and IT industries continue to record the highest levels of investment, the rapid development of AI shows that this technology is not just a temporary phenomenon, but a sustainable growth driver of the future. The significant investments and the high number of start-ups point to an imminent era in which AI will play a key role in the further development and modernisation of a wide range of industries. It remains exciting to see how this dynamic will continue to unfold in the coming years and which new fields of innovation will emerge as a result of the progressive integration of AI."
