November 20, 2025

Checking out

Hi there,

Here is this week's Hot or Not.

Hot: AI agent market explosion

The AI agent market has exploded into 1,500+ players. 

1 in 5 new unicorns ($1B+ valuation) are now developing agents, while agentic startups have become leading acquisition targets for enterprise software incumbents.

Check out our AI agent market map to see 400+ promising private companies across core enterprise use cases and industry applications. 

Not: Volatile crypto

In October, over 15 companies across the stablecoin infrastructure stack raised early-stage capital.

Investors like Thrive Capital and Sequoia bet $500M on Tempo, a Layer-1 blockchain for stablecoin payments developed by Stripe and Paradigm, at a $5B valuation. 

Meanwhile, middleware players Tesser ($4.5M seed round) and Cybrid ($10M Series A) are building APIs for banks to integrate stablecoin rails.

See October’s Early-Stage Trends Report to learn more about what’s next in tech based on our analysis of 1,350+ pre-seed to Series A deals. 

Hot: Surgical robots

AI and computer vision are making surgical robots more precise and safer to use across a wide range of procedures.

As these technologies mature, incumbents are responding through acquisitions and investments:

• Johnson & Johnson just led a $67M Series D for China-based Ronovo Surgical while securing distribution rights
• Intuitive announced plans to acquire distribution operations across Europe

Specialized systems are leading targets based on CB Insights M&A probability scores: Think Surgical targets joint replacements, iotaMotion handles hearing implants, and Medical Micro Instruments pioneered reconstructive microsurgery.

See CB Insights' analysis of 40+ surgical robotics companies to identify the top 6 M&A targets.

Not: Shopping alone

AI agents are poised to become your personal shopper, and tech leaders & retailers are racing to make it happen:

• Perplexity’s Buy with Pro and OpenAI’s Instant Checkout let users research and buy directly within their AI search platforms
• Shopify and Walmart are integrating their catalogs into ChatGPT
• PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard are building the rails for autonomous payments

See how AI agents are reshaping every stage of the customer journey in CB Insights' agentic commerce market map.

The +1

Book smarts? Sometimes, you should judge a book by its cover. 

I love you.

Anand

@asanwal 

Co-Founder & Exec Chair

P.S. Did you miss our briefing on real-world use cases of AI agents in action? Download the recording to learn about agents driving ROI.  

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