Given that the majority U.S. startup investment currently goes to artificial intelligence firms, it’s clear that a wide selection of upstarts are receiving funding. So where are seed and early-stage investors betting?
To shed some light on this issue, we analyzed a dataset of AI startups that have raised at least several million dollars in seed or early-stage funding this 12 months.
While it was a diverse crew, a few areas stood out as particularly popular. These include back-office tools, robotics, drug development and healthcare automation.
The increased early-stage funding for these areas comes after the most high-profile generative AI startups have largely reached the later stage.
In turn, much of the current generation of early-stage startups is focused less on broad, general AI models and more on solving problems and automating tasks in specific industries.
Without further ado, here are 4 areas that caught our attention.
No. 1: Back-office automation
According to Crunchbase data, back-office automation has been one of the hottest early-stage and early-stage AI investment topics – and apparently for good reason. Tasks related to accounting, payroll, compliance and other back-office functions represent significant costs for all businesses.
But back-office workloads will be especially difficult for smaller firms that lack the economies of scale of larger rivals. That’s why many startups are focusing on this.
To get an idea of where the funding is headed, we have compiled a sample list of 10 firms that have raised seed or early-stage rounds this 12 months with a focus on back-office automation.
No. 2: Robotics
Anyone who has ever done boring, dirty, or difficult physical work has probably fantasized about a robot taking up. In recent quarters, a surge in funding for startups at the intersection of artificial intelligence and robotics signifies that fantasy can now at least come closer to reality.
According to Crunchbase data, we are seeing a particularly strong wave of investment activity in the early and early stages. To illustrate this, we have compiled a sample list of 14 firms that have received funding so far this 12 months.
No. 3: AI tools for healthcare
High on the wish list of many healthcare providers is the ability to spend more time delivering care and less time on recordkeeping and compliance tasks. A slew of recently funded startups at the intersection of healthcare and artificial intelligence are trying to help achieve this goal with tools that automate some of the more tedious and repetitive tasks.
To illustrate this, we used Crunchbase to create a representative sample list of 10 firms in this space that have raised seed or early-stage funding.
However, this list is only a small portion of the full population of startups in the space funded this 12 months, for which we also provide a sample inquiry.
No. 4: Drug development and medical research
The intersection of AI and biotechnology is also a vibrant area of seed and early-stage funding.
So far in 2025, this has manifested itself most noticeably in a series of megarounds for Lili’s sciencea Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup working on a so-called “scientific superintelligence platform” for life sciences, chemistry and materials science.
However, beyond Lila, many other AI and biotech startups have also raised large seed and early-stage rounds this 12 months. Below, we have compiled a sample of 10 firms that stood out.
But wait, there’s more
While this text focused on 4 investing topics, several others stood out from our query. These included legal technologies, launches, chip designs and AI-powered voice and audio innovations.
As is typical in the seeding and early stages, the guarantees in all of these areas sound quite enticing. However, we are going to see in a few years whether the visions of less burdensome office space, more employees equipped with robots, an improved health care system and faster and more practical medical tests will come true.