Every few years, a new wave of startups reshapes the tech landscape, tackling challenges that big players either can’t solve or don’t prioritize. In 2025, the energy is electric. From specialized AI hardware to creative tools democratizing design and video production, here are five remarkable startups that are not only turning heads — they’re building the future.
1. Etched: Building a Chip Just for AI Inference
Founded: 2022
HQ: San Francisco, CA
Industry: Semiconductor / AI Infrastructure
Funding: $120M+ (as of early 2025)
What they do:
Etched is creating a custom chip architecture built entirely around transformer inference — the same architecture behind models like GPT, Claude, and LLaMA. While Nvidia and AMD build general-purpose GPUs, Etched is going all in on domain-specific hardware: one chip, one job — and it does it incredibly well.
Their chip is not designed to train large models but to run them (inference) faster and more efficiently. This approach slashes both energy consumption and cost for AI deployment.
Why it matters:
With demand for real-time AI services skyrocketing across industries, inference costs are becoming a bottleneck. Etched promises 10x performance gains at a fraction of the cost, which could make AI more accessible to startups, developers, and even governments.
“We’re not building a Swiss Army knife. We’re building a scalpel.” — Gavin Uberti, Co-founder of Etched
2. Tome: Your AI-Powered Storytelling Partner
Founded: 2020
HQ: New York, NY
Industry: SaaS / Productivity
Funding: $80M+
Users: 10M+ monthly active users
What they do:
Tome has positioned itself as the ultimate AI-native storytelling platform. Think of it as a hybrid between PowerPoint, Notion, and Canva — with GPT under the hood. It allows users to create stunning presentations, reports, and interactive documents in minutes.
Whether you’re pitching investors, presenting a quarterly update, or crafting a visual resume, Tome turns your text prompts into fully-designed, data-rich decks — complete with charts, media, and animations.
Key features:
- Drag-and-drop templates that adapt to content
- AI-generated visuals and icons
- Real-time collaboration and web-based sharing
- Data integrations (Google Sheets, Airtable, Notion)
Why it matters:
Tome isn’t just for design teams. Salespeople, founders, and marketers are using it to improve storytelling — fast. And in a remote-first world, good storytelling is everything.
90% of Tome users say it reduces their presentation creation time by 70% or more.
3. Runway ML: AI Video Editing Meets Hollywood Production
Founded: 2018
HQ: New York, NY
Industry: Creative Tech / Generative AI
Flagship Product: Gen-3 Alpha
Partners: Adobe, OpenAI, A24, Ridley Scott Creative Group
What they do:
Runway is pushing the boundaries of text-to-video generation. With their new Gen-3 Alpha model, users can generate 5–10 second cinematic video clips from just a prompt — with remarkable realism and movement. It’s the closest thing yet to AI filmmaking.
But Runway isn’t just a novelty. It also offers powerful video editing tools:
- Object removal
- Background replacement
- Motion tracking
- Style transfer
Creators can now edit videos as easily as editing text, making Runway an essential tool for social media managers, filmmakers, agencies, and influencers.
Why it matters:
Runway is doing for video what Canva did for design. It democratizes visual storytelling and gives indie creators access to tools once reserved for studios with $100K budgets.
“I produced my entire short film using Runway — without a camera crew.” — A Runway user
4. Kittl: A Next-Gen Canva for Brand Builders
Founded: 2020
HQ: Berlin, Germany
Industry: Graphic Design / No-Code
Target Users: Ecommerce brands, Creators, Side-hustlers
What they do:
Kittl makes high-end graphic design accessible to non-designers. Unlike Canva, which targets general productivity graphics (presentations, posters), Kittl focuses on premium-looking branding materials — logos, merch, packaging, and product design.
It offers:
- A deep library of artistic templates (vintage, modern, illustrative)
- AI image and logo generation
- Professional-grade typography tools
- Mockups and export formats for apparel, labels, and packaging
Why it matters:
Ecommerce founders and content creators are using Kittl to launch products and create content without ever hiring a designer. It’s become the go-to design tool for small business owners with high aesthetic standards.
“Kittl is what I wish I had when launching my Etsy store — it’s like having a branding agency in your browser.”
5. UnifyAI: Deploy AI Agents Without the Engineering Overhead
Founded: 2024
HQ: Remote-first
Industry: AI Automation / DevTools
Use Cases: CRM automation, internal tools, AI agents, LLM integrations
What they do:
UnifyAI helps companies build AI-powered agents and workflows without needing to set up LLM infrastructure or prompt chaining manually. It offers prebuilt templates and plug-ins for:
- Customer support chatbots
- AI internal tools (data parsing, summarization)
- LLM-powered API endpoints
- Agentic workflows (multi-step task automation)
Users can deploy agents connected to their database, Notion, Slack, or Salesforce in hours, not weeks.
Why it matters:
As businesses seek to integrate AI into their workflows, many hit a technical wall. UnifyAI removes the engineering bottleneck by offering a layer of abstraction — enabling startups and teams to build smarter software faster.
“UnifyAI made it possible for our 3-person team to build what used to take an entire ML department.”
Is Tech handling the future?
These startups aren’t just interesting — they’re pivotal. Each one is addressing a growing demand in today’s tech ecosystem:
- Etched: The future of efficient AI infrastructure
- Tome: Visual communication in the AI age
- Runway: Next-gen creative expression
- Kittl: Design-first branding without design skills
- UnifyAI: No-code access to powerful AI workflows
Whether you’re building, investing, or just watching, these startups are shaping what the next decade will look like.
