logo
The Dupe Unicorn: The Rise Of Lean, AI-Powered Startups

The Dupe Unicorn: The Rise Of Lean, AI-Powered Startups

Forbesa day ago

Wayne Liu is the Chief Growth Officer and President of Perfect Corp America.
Venture capital has entered a new era of constraint. According to EY, a $40 billion AI transaction helped prop up venture capital numbers, but without it, funding would have seen a steep 36% drop—and the overall volume of deals continues to shrink. Megadeals like this are now the exception, not the norm.
Yet amid this pullback, one sector continues to surge: artificial intelligence. AI-related startups accounted for 33% of all VC activity in 2024 and show no signs of slowing. The unicorn model may be fading, but something smarter is rising in its place.
According to Crunchbase, IPO activity has flatlined, with hundreds of companies still in the pipeline; many from the unicorn class of 2021 and 2022 are stuck without an exit in sight. At the same time, traditional venture capital is morphing into something more conservative. As Bloomberg recently reported, firms like Lightspeed are shifting away from the classic VC model, increasingly behaving like private equity players focused on capital efficiency and profitability.
In this environment, the billion-dollar unicorn model, the holy grail of startup success for decades, no longer feels viable for many founders. The good news? There seems to be something new taking its place.
From the wreckage of the old growth-at-all-costs model, a new breed of startup is emerging: lean, AI-powered and profitable, which is what I refer to as the LAP model. These founders aren't scaling head count or chasing inflated valuations. Instead, they're building lean businesses with small teams, using open-source large language models (LLMs) and AI tools to automate tasks ranging from customer service and content creation to coding and strategic decision-making. In some cases, they're even replacing expensive consultants with AI agents that can perform real-time market analysis or draft legal documents.
Recent research shows that AI startups are achieving revenue growth at a pace that significantly outpaces traditional tech companies. Their ability to reach customers faster, automate internal processes and scale with minimal human overhead gives them a notable advantage, especially in a market where efficient monetization has become a survival skill.
I call these startups "dupe unicorns." Much like the consumer trend where savvy shoppers seek affordable "dupes" of premium products, today's smartest founders are creating companies that deliver the value of unicorns without the overhead. They may not have massive valuations but offer real utility, faster execution and sustainable business models.
In beauty and fashion culture, a "dupe" (short for duplicate) is a lower-cost alternative to a high-end product that offers similar benefits. Crucially, a dupe is not a counterfeit; it doesn't pretend to be the original or infringe on intellectual property. Instead, it's a smart substitute: an independent product that delivers comparable results, often at a fraction of the price. On platforms like TikTok, dupe culture is a celebration of value, discovery and democratized access.
Apply that to startups, and the metaphor becomes powerful. A dupe unicorn isn't a knockoff of a legacy tech giant. It's a next-gen business that mimics unicorns' performance, innovation and market traction but with leaner resources, smarter automation and sharper focus.
I've seen this shift firsthand through my work advising university accelerators and incubators. Founders today aren't waiting for large teams or fundraising milestones. One founder built an AI-powered video analytics system for sports, helping coaches with limited staff make better decisions. His tool rivals those used by elite organizations at a fraction of the cost. Another, frustrated by traditional market research, launched a generative AI search engine using open-source models, making real-time consumer insights as intuitive as a Google search.
A gamer trained a translation engine for cross-border multiplayer sessions, optimized for speed and slang. A marketer developed an AI content generation tool to produce campaign materials, social posts and email copy all from one interface, bypassing costly agencies.
It's a new kind of builder mindset: practical, fast-moving and unburdened by the myths of needing massive teams or massive rounds to make an impact.
Having helped build my company from seed stage to IPO over nine years, I've lived through the unicorn arc. I know the exhilaration of hypergrowth and its weight. That perspective has sharpened my appreciation for what these new AI-native startups are doing. Here's what I believe founders should embrace now:
1. Design AI-inclusive models from day one. Use AI not just to optimize, but to reimagine your business's foundation. Ask yourself: What can be automated, personalized or accelerated from day one?
2. Run lean with intentionality. It's not about avoiding people; it's about sequencing. Use AI to build early momentum and add team members when human creativity, trust or judgment are truly needed.
3. Speak to the new consumer journey. Gen Z and Gen Alpha founders already get this. The customer journey is no longer a funnel; it's dynamic, nonlinear, shaped by TikTok trends, AI recommendations and immersive technologies like AR glasses. Your go-to-market strategy needs to flow with that reality, not fight it.
4. Prototype, learn, repeat. Founders can now test a new idea, build a landing page, generate content and gather user feedback all within a weekend. Use that velocity to your advantage.
5. Prioritize profitability without compromising vision. Capital efficiency is a competitive advantage. Let profitability guide your build decisions. A good business model should sustain you, not distract you.
The unicorn isn't dead but evolving. In today's climate, founders don't need a million-dollar funding and a 30-person team to build a game-changing company. Sometimes, all it takes is a strong idea, a solid AI stack and a sharp understanding of your customer's real need.
The dupe unicorn is not a compromise. It's a smarter model for a smarter age, rooted in innovation and built to last. In the age of capital discipline, the LAP model, lean, AI-powered, and profitable, may well become the blueprint for the next generation of breakout startups.
Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

OpenAI taps Google in unprecedented cloud deal despite AI rivalry, sources say: Reuters
OpenAI taps Google in unprecedented cloud deal despite AI rivalry, sources say: Reuters

CNBC

time8 minutes ago

  • CNBC

OpenAI taps Google in unprecedented cloud deal despite AI rivalry, sources say: Reuters

OpenAI plans to add Alphabet'sGoogle cloud service to meet its growing needs for computing capacity, three sources told Reuters, marking a surprising collaboration between two prominent competitors in the artificial intelligence sector. The deal, which has been under discussion for a few months, was finalized in May, one of the sources added. It underscores how massive computing demands to train and deploy AI models are reshaping the competitive dynamics in AI, and marks OpenAI's latest move to diversify its compute sources beyond its major supporter Microsoft, including its high-profile Stargate data center project. It is a win for Google's cloud unit, which will supply additional computing capacity to OpenAI's existing infrastructure for training and running its AI models, sources said, who requested anonymity to discuss private matters. The move also comes as OpenAI's ChatGPT poses the biggest threat to Google's dominant search business in years, with Google executives recently saying that the AI race may not be winner-take-all. OpenAI, Google and Microsoft declined to comment. Alphabet's stock was up 2.1% on Tuesday afternoon following the news, while Microsoft shares were down 0.6%. Scotiabank analysts called the development "somewhat surprising" in a note on Tuesday, highlighting the growth opportunities for Google's Cloud unit, while expressing caution regarding competition from ChatGPT. "The deal ... underscores the fact that the two are willing to overlook heavy competition between them to meet the massive computing demands. Ultimately, we view this as a big win for Google's cloud unit, but ... there are continued worries that ChatGPT is becoming an incrementally larger threat to Google's search dominance," the analysts wrote. Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, OpenAI has dealt with increasing demand for computing capacity - known in the industry as compute - for training large language models, as well as for running inference, which involves processing information so people can use these models. OpenAI said on Monday that its annualized revenue run rate surged to $10 billion as of June, positioning the company to hit its full-year target amid booming adoption of AI. Earlier this year, OpenAI partnered with SoftBank and Oracle on the $500 billion Stargate infrastructure program, and signed deals worth billions with CoreWeave for more compute. It is on track this year to finalize the design of its first in-house chip that could reduce its dependency on external hardware providers, Reuters reported in February. The partnership with Google is the latest of several maneuvers made by OpenAI to reduce its dependency on Microsoft, whose Azure cloud service had served as the ChatGPT maker's exclusive data center infrastructure provider until January. Google and OpenAI discussed an arrangement for months but were previously blocked from signing a deal due to OpenAI's lock-in with Microsoft, a source told Reuters. Microsoft and OpenAI are also in negotiations to revise the terms of their multibillion-dollar investment, including the future equity stake Microsoft will hold in OpenAI. For Google, the deal comes as the tech giant is expanding external availability of its in-house chip known as tensor processing units, or TPUs, which were historically reserved for internal use. That helped Google win customers including Big Tech player Apple as well as startups like Anthropic and Safe Superintelligence, two OpenAI competitors launched by former OpenAI leaders. Google's addition of OpenAI to its customer list shows how the tech giant has capitalized on its in-house AI technology from hardware to software to accelerate the growth of its cloud business. Google Cloud, whose $43 billion in sales comprised 12% of Alphabet's 2024 revenue, has positioned itself as a neutral arbiter of computing resources in an effort to outflank Amazon and Microsoft as the cloud provider of choice for a rising legion of AI startups whose heavy infrastructure demands generate costly bills. Alphabet faces market pressure to demonstrate financial returns on its AI-related capital expenditures, which are expected to hit $75 billion this year, while maintaining its bottom line against the threat of competing AI offerings, as well as antitrust enforcement. Google's DeepMind AI unit also competes directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in a race to develop the best models and integrate those advances into consumer applications. Selling computing power reduces Google's own supply of chips while bolstering capacity-constrained rivals. The OpenAI deal will further complicate how Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai allocates the capacity between the competing interests of Google's enterprise and consumer business segments. Google already lacked sufficient capacity to meet its cloud customers' demands as of the last quarter, Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi told analysts in April. Although ChatGPT holds a large lead over Google's competing chatbot in terms of monthly users and analysts have predicted it could reduce Google's dominant search market share, Pichai has brushed aside concerns that OpenAI will usurp Google's business dominance.

AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry
AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry

Business Wire

time13 minutes ago

  • Business Wire

AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Laurel, the world's first AI Time platform, today announced it has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by IVP, with participation from GV (Google Ventures). Laurel will leverage this investment to scale its AI time platform and accelerate to solve what it calls the 'time intelligence challenge"—the inability for knowledge industries to accurately map time to business outcomes. In the age of AI, quantifying and understanding human capital goes from a 'nice to have' to a 'cannot exist without' for enterprises. In addition to IVP and GV, new investors in the round, which consists of primary and secondary funding, also include: 01.a (created by former CEO and COO of Twitter & CRO of Facebook), DST Global, Kevin Weil (CPO @ OpenAI), Alexis Ohanian, Vladimir Fedorov (CTO @ GitHub), Arash Ferdowsi (co-founder of Dropbox), and Hans Tung. These investors join returning investors ACME, Anthos, Gokul Rajaram, AIX Ventures, and Marc Benioff's TIME Ventures. The funding comes as Laurel experiences rapid adoption among enterprise professional services firms like Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, Freshfields, and Crowell & Moring. Over the last 12 months, Laurel grew ARR +300% at double-digit scale, increased usage by +500%, and works with +100 of the top legal, accounting, and consulting firms across US, UK, EU, Australia, and Canada. Laurel's AI Time platform, now leveraged by hundreds of the world's top enterprise professional service firms, uses AI to automatically categorize, describe, and analyze how professionals spend their time on admin work. The platform's ability to connect time data with business outcomes has proven transformative for firms looking to maximize profits, allocate their resources effectively, and understand exactly what workflows to apply AI to and what agents to automate. Customers using the company's AI-native time platform report profit increases between 4-11%—driven by an additional 28 billable minutes per day per professional, and increased realization of 1-4%. Laurel's ROI methodology has been independently audited and validated by a Big-4 Firm. The platform currently processes over $5B in gross market value for its customers, and +$360M of that amount is net-new value attributable to Laurel. In addition, Laurel saves its professionals up to 80% in time recording, freeing them to work on high-leverage work. 'Laurel uniquely delivers value across lawyers, clients, finance, and marketing by streamlining time capture, enriching narratives, and accelerating accurate billing,' says Reed Cunningham, Chief Innovation Officer at global law firm Reed Smith. 'As firms assess the impact of AI and fixed fees, gaining granular intelligence with less effort is essential to redefining value within a firm and for its clients.' 'I've seen first-hand how Laurel can transform our approach to time intelligence. What used to be a manual process of time-keeping and entry is now significantly technology enabled,' says Matt Newnes, Partner and Tax Transformation leader at Ernst & Young. 'Laurel doesn't just help our people to capture time that they spend on work more comprehensively; it helps us to understand much more about how our teams work allowing us to identify best practices to help ensure we always drive the best outcomes for our clients. It has proven to be one of our most impactful AI investments, delivering measurable results while laying the foundation for broader transformation initiatives.' Automating time is Laurel's first step. Laurel's AI platform turns its proprietary data around work and time to address the #1 business problem impacting knowledge industries: operating without visibility into their supply chain. 'Nobody has ever mapped the input of time to the output of outcomes. Industries like legal and accounting are best at understanding their input (time), but still struggle to price value. On the flip side, industries like consulting and financial services understand value, but operate blind to the true cost of creation. While all other industries have been obsessed about optimizing their supply chain, the supply chain of knowledge work—which represents over 50% of Global GDP—has never been surfaced. This funding helps us solve this fundamental challenge while giving firms the data foundation they need to deploy AI strategically. We're not just automating time—we're creating the time intelligence layer that will transform how all knowledge industries operate," says Ryan Alshak, founder and CEO of Laurel. "Laurel has identified one of the largest efficiency gaps in the modern economy, one I understand deeply as a former CFO of a public company. Professional services represent trillions in global economic activity, yet these firms operate without basic visibility into their core resource – time. By solving the time intelligence challenge, Laurel creates a platform for broader AI transformation. As these industries invest heavily in AI over the next five years, Laurel's data foundation becomes essential infrastructure that truly tracks the ROI of AI. The market opportunity is massive, and Laurel's unique position makes them the clear leader in this space," says Ajay Vashee, General Partner at IVP. 'Laurel is creating the enterprise intelligence layer for knowledge work that leverages timekeeping as a product wedge,' said Frederique Dame, General Partner at GV. 'By capturing and organizing the full lifecycle of how professionals spend their time, Laurel unlocks a new class of data that makes work itself measurable, optimizable, and automatable. The goal isn't just better time tracking, it's building the data foundation for AI-powered workflows, predictive resourcing, and strategic insights.' Transforming How Knowledge Industries Understand and Optimize Work While manufacturing companies know exactly how much it costs to produce a car down to the penny, and retail businesses track inventory with precision, professional services firms have historically operated without understanding their most critical resource: human capital. Both the outcomes of the work itself and the time it takes to produce it. As a result, organizations are operating blind on what the biggest impact for AI is across their companies, and how to point people to highest value tasks (like Business Development, Relationship Management, and first principles strategic thinking). As knowledge industries plan to spend over $1 trillion on AI in the next five years, Laurel's time intelligence platform ensures these investments target the highest-impact opportunities. Key customer results include: Average recovery of 28+ billable minutes per professional per day 4-11% increase in overall firm profitability 80%+ reduction in time spent on manual time entry Real-time visibility into project profitability and resource utilization 'While Laurel is unique in that it is AI that generates profits, the reason everyone at Laurel cares so much about solving this problem is because people waste so much time at work, and the only way to solve this at scale is to deeply understand where that time is going,' says Alshak. 'And we're starting with professional services because that will give us the human-in-the-loop required to create the world's first-ever agentic timesheet. The average knowledge worker works 9 hours a day, but only adds leverage for 3. That is 3 hours a day we're doing work that should be done by agents, and 3 hours a day we're doing work that nobody should do. That is our opportunity set – 6.4 billion years currently being spent by knowledge workers on tasks humans no longer need to do. That is our opportunity.' About Laurel Laurel is the world's first AI Time platform for professional services firms. The company's AI transforms how organizations track, analyze, describe, and optimize their most valuable resource: time. By automating work time and connecting time data to business outcomes, Laurel enables firms to increase profitability, improve client delivery, and make data-driven strategic decisions. Founded in 2018, Laurel serves many of the world's largest accounting, consulting and law firms. For more information, visit About IVP IVP supercharges growth in breakout companies, converting momentum into market dominance. One of the original venture firms on Sand Hill Road, IVP partners with companies that define their eras—from Slack, Crowdstrike and Coinbase to Perplexity, Abridge, Glean and Chainguard—before the world truly appreciated them. Each year, IVP invests in just a dozen breakout founders ready to scale from millions to hundreds of millions in revenue and expand from one market to many. We've guided market leaders through cycles and storms, unlocking pivotal growth by activating the right expertise at the moments founders need it. With 130+ IPOs out of 400 investments, IVP helps ambitious founders defy limits, command industries and cement their place at the top.

AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry
AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry

Yahoo

time14 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

AI Time Platform Laurel Raises $100 Million to Transform the Professional Services Industry

IVP leads and GV joins Series C as Laurel reshapes how professional services firms keep time and optimize work using AI SAN FRANCISCO, June 10, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Laurel, the world's first AI Time platform, today announced it has raised $100 million in Series C funding led by IVP, with participation from GV (Google Ventures). Laurel will leverage this investment to scale its AI time platform and accelerate to solve what it calls the "time intelligence challenge"—the inability for knowledge industries to accurately map time to business outcomes. In the age of AI, quantifying and understanding human capital goes from a "nice to have" to a "cannot exist without" for enterprises. In addition to IVP and GV, new investors in the round, which consists of primary and secondary funding, also include: 01.a (created by former CEO and COO of Twitter & CRO of Facebook), DST Global, Kevin Weil (CPO @ OpenAI), Alexis Ohanian, Vladimir Fedorov (CTO @ GitHub), Arash Ferdowsi (co-founder of Dropbox), and Hans Tung. These investors join returning investors ACME, Anthos, Gokul Rajaram, AIX Ventures, and Marc Benioff's TIME Ventures. The funding comes as Laurel experiences rapid adoption among enterprise professional services firms like Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton, Freshfields, and Crowell & Moring. Over the last 12 months, Laurel grew ARR +300% at double-digit scale, increased usage by +500%, and works with +100 of the top legal, accounting, and consulting firms across US, UK, EU, Australia, and Canada. Laurel's AI Time platform, now leveraged by hundreds of the world's top enterprise professional service firms, uses AI to automatically categorize, describe, and analyze how professionals spend their time on admin work. The platform's ability to connect time data with business outcomes has proven transformative for firms looking to maximize profits, allocate their resources effectively, and understand exactly what workflows to apply AI to and what agents to automate. Customers using the company's AI-native time platform report profit increases between 4-11%—driven by an additional 28 billable minutes per day per professional, and increased realization of 1-4%. Laurel's ROI methodology has been independently audited and validated by a Big-4 Firm. The platform currently processes over $5B in gross market value for its customers, and +$360M of that amount is net-new value attributable to Laurel. In addition, Laurel saves its professionals up to 80% in time recording, freeing them to work on high-leverage work. "Laurel uniquely delivers value across lawyers, clients, finance, and marketing by streamlining time capture, enriching narratives, and accelerating accurate billing," says David Cunningham, Chief Innovation Officer at global law firm Reed Smith. "As firms assess the impact of AI and fixed fees, gaining granular intelligence with less effort is essential to redefining value within a firm and for its clients." "I've seen first-hand how Laurel can transform our approach to time intelligence. What used to be a manual process of time-keeping and entry is now significantly technology enabled," says Matt Newnes, Partner and Tax Transformation leader at Ernst & Young. "Laurel doesn't just help our people to capture time that they spend on work more comprehensively; it helps us to understand much more about how our teams work allowing us to identify best practices to help ensure we always drive the best outcomes for our clients. It has proven to be one of our most impactful AI investments, delivering measurable results while laying the foundation for broader transformation initiatives." Automating time is Laurel's first step. Laurel's AI platform turns its proprietary data around work and time to address the #1 business problem impacting knowledge industries: operating without visibility into their supply chain. "Nobody has ever mapped the input of time to the output of outcomes. Industries like legal and accounting are best at understanding their input (time), but still struggle to price value. On the flip side, industries like consulting and financial services understand value, but operate blind to the true cost of creation. While all other industries have been obsessed about optimizing their supply chain, the supply chain of knowledge work—which represents over 50% of Global GDP—has never been surfaced. This funding helps us solve this fundamental challenge while giving firms the data foundation they need to deploy AI strategically. We're not just automating time—we're creating the time intelligence layer that will transform how all knowledge industries operate," says Ryan Alshak, founder and CEO of Laurel. "Laurel has identified one of the largest efficiency gaps in the modern economy, one I understand deeply as a former CFO of a public company. Professional services represent trillions in global economic activity, yet these firms operate without basic visibility into their core resource – time. By solving the time intelligence challenge, Laurel creates a platform for broader AI transformation. As these industries invest heavily in AI over the next five years, Laurel's data foundation becomes essential infrastructure that truly tracks the ROI of AI. The market opportunity is massive, and Laurel's unique position makes them the clear leader in this space," says Ajay Vashee, General Partner at IVP. "Laurel is creating the enterprise intelligence layer for knowledge work that leverages timekeeping as a product wedge," said Frederique Dame, General Partner at GV. "By capturing and organizing the full lifecycle of how professionals spend their time, Laurel unlocks a new class of data that makes work itself measurable, optimizable, and automatable. The goal isn't just better time tracking, it's building the data foundation for AI-powered workflows, predictive resourcing, and strategic insights." Transforming How Knowledge Industries Understand and Optimize Work While manufacturing companies know exactly how much it costs to produce a car down to the penny, and retail businesses track inventory with precision, professional services firms have historically operated without understanding their most critical resource: human capital. Both the outcomes of the work itself and the time it takes to produce it. As a result, organizations are operating blind on what the biggest impact for AI is across their companies, and how to point people to highest value tasks (like Business Development, Relationship Management, and first principles strategic thinking). As knowledge industries plan to spend over $1 trillion on AI in the next five years, Laurel's time intelligence platform ensures these investments target the highest-impact opportunities. Key customer results include: Average recovery of 28+ billable minutes per professional per day 4-11% increase in overall firm profitability 80%+ reduction in time spent on manual time entry Real-time visibility into project profitability and resource utilization "While Laurel is unique in that it is AI that generates profits, the reason everyone at Laurel cares so much about solving this problem is because people waste so much time at work, and the only way to solve this at scale is to deeply understand where that time is going," says Alshak. "And we're starting with professional services because that will give us the human-in-the-loop required to create the world's first-ever agentic timesheet. The average knowledge worker works 9 hours a day, but only adds leverage for 3. That is 3 hours a day we're doing work that should be done by agents, and 3 hours a day we're doing work that nobody should do. That is our opportunity set – 6.4 billion years currently being spent by knowledge workers on tasks humans no longer need to do. That is our opportunity." About Laurel Laurel is the world's first AI Time platform for professional services firms. The company's AI transforms how organizations track, analyze, describe, and optimize their most valuable resource: time. By automating work time and connecting time data to business outcomes, Laurel enables firms to increase profitability, improve client delivery, and make data-driven strategic decisions. Founded in 2018, Laurel serves many of the world's largest accounting, consulting and law firms. For more information, visit About IVP IVP supercharges growth in breakout companies, converting momentum into market dominance. One of the original venture firms on Sand Hill Road, IVP partners with companies that define their eras—from Slack, Crowdstrike and Coinbase to Perplexity, Abridge, Glean and Chainguard—before the world truly appreciated them. Each year, IVP invests in just a dozen breakout founders ready to scale from millions to hundreds of millions in revenue and expand from one market to many. We've guided market leaders through cycles and storms, unlocking pivotal growth by activating the right expertise at the moments founders need it. With 130+ IPOs out of 400 investments, IVP helps ambitious founders defy limits, command industries and cement their place at the top. View source version on Contacts Media Contact: Alexa Guerra, Head of Marketing | marketing@ Sign in to access your portfolio

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store