2025 was a breakout year for early-stage startups: founders launched more companies and generated revenue faster than ever. 

Delaware C corporations grew an average of 41% year over year for the past 6 months, according to the Delaware Division of Corporations. US investors deployed more capital into larger seed rounds in 2025 compared to previous years, enabling founders to hire earlier, accelerate product development, and invest in customer acquisition from the outset. Case in point: among startups incorporated through Stripe Atlas, a platform that helps founders incorporate their company, 20% now land their first paying customer within 30 days of incorporation—more than double the rate in 2020. 

Notably, this acceleration in early-stage revenue growth happened even as the share of funded Atlas startups declined in 2025, suggesting that speed-to-revenue isn’t just a function of outside funding. 

Atlas now incorporates one in five Delaware C corps, giving us unique visibility into how quickly founders generate revenue, how they structure teams, and how many countries and customers they reach in their first months. Looking at our data from the 23,000 companies that incorporated in 2025 versus prior years, three shifts stand out: customer bases are more international than ever, time-to-revenue has compressed, and founders are turning their attention to AI agents over AI infrastructure or copilots.

Startups in 2025 are more global than ever

The number of countries represented by Atlas incorporations hit 169 in 2025—an all-time high—up from 158 in 2024. This year also marked Atlas’s first-ever founders from the Central African Republic, Comoros, San Marino, and Vanuatu. 

While 56% of Atlas startups are based in the US, the founder base has become more global.

Europe saw the largest year-over-year increase in its share of Atlas incorporations in 2025, with European founder incorporations growing 48%. The strongest European incorporation growth was concentrated in the UK, France, and Germany.

Amid tighter capital constraints at home, European founders are increasingly incorporating in Delaware to access US capital markets. This trend reflects a persistent funding gap: startups in the US pulled in nearly half of $36 billion in global seed funding in 2025.

Founding teams span multiple countries

The rise of remote work has led to more distributed founding teams, with cofounders often living in different cities or countries. Among Atlas startups with more than 1 founder, 24% now span multiple countries—a 79% increase since 2017. The most common country pairings for multicountry Atlas founding teams are Canada and the US, the UK and the US, and India and the US.

To understand how these distributed teams form, we surveyed a subset of Atlas teams with cofounders based in different countries. We found two paths: roughly half the founding teams met in person first, then moved to different countries. The other half met entirely online, typically through professional projects. This represents a new model of company formation: founders prioritize the right partnership over physical proximity. 

Cross-border startup activity reaches new highs 

For years, selling internationally was something you tackled after nailing product-market fit at home. That mental model is becoming obsolete.

Between 2017 and 2024, the median Atlas startup sold to customers in one country during its first six months. In 2025, that doubled to 2 countries, and at the 90th percentile, startups reached 15 countries—up from 12 last year. The typical startup is now cross-border from the start.

These startups are reaching customers across an unprecedented number of countries. For example, Rork, a no-code website and app builder, reached 69 countries in its first month accepting payments on Stripe. The startup generated $100,000 in revenue in 5 days from a viral X post. Zeabur, from Taiwan, was used by software developers in 46 countries to deploy and operate services, including databases, open source projects, and custom applications. 

There are several factors at play. Payments infrastructure and compliance tools have reduced technical barriers, while cloud infrastructure and translation APIs have reduced dependency on local servers and custom localization work. Distributed founding teams come with built-in international networks: when your cofounder lives in London and you’re in Bangalore, you’re not “expanding to Europe and India.” You’re just selling to your networks. For companies starting in 2025, going global has become a default posture at launch.

Speed to revenue is accelerating

Founders are generating revenue faster than ever. The share of Atlas startups charging their first customer within 30 days hit an all-time high of 20% in 2025, up from 8% in 2020.

Among startups that monetize quickly (i.e., those accepting payment within their first three months), the pace also accelerated. The median time to first payment fell nearly 11% year over year in 2025, from 38 to 34 days—the fastest since 2020.

Contributing to this speed: accepting payments no longer requires waiting for an EIN when you incorporate with Atlas. Beginning in January 2025, Atlas enabled founders to accept payments immediately after incorporation, saving founders outside the US from waiting up to five months for their EIN during tax season.

The infrastructure change explains part of the acceleration, but revenue growth points to a separate dynamic. The median first 6 months of revenue for the 2025 Atlas cohort jumped 39% year over year. Founders are shipping products and finding customers faster.

More companies are hitting $100K faster

In 2025, more Atlas startups hit $100,000 of revenue in their first 6 months—56% more than in 2024—and they got there nearly 11% faster (108 days versus 121).

Atlas startups are also landing more customers: an average of 242 in their first 6 months, up over 50% from the prior year.

The gap between breakout and average is widening

The median Atlas startup that incorporated in 2025 generated 39% more revenue in its first 6 months than its 2024 counterpart. But the gains weren’t evenly distributed. Startups at the 10th percentile generated 18% more than their 2024 counterparts. At the 90th percentile, the increase was 52%—widening the gap between top and bottom performers.

Outliers have always been the driving force in startups. But this year’s outliers are pulling even further ahead than prior cohorts. At the same time, the entire distribution is shifting up: at month 6, the median Atlas startup formed in 2025 is growing as fast as the 90th percentile startup from 2024. 

Revenue is growing faster because it’s easier for new companies to start monetizing. Modern developer tools allow developers to ship faster. Global payments, compliance management, and financial infrastructure have improved. As a result, founders can move from incorporation to revenue in weeks instead of months. 

AI is changing what founders are choosing to build

Startups reveal where founders and investors see opportunity. In January 2023, just 15% of Atlas founders told us they were building AI startups. By 2024, that rose to 33%. In 2025, it hit 42%. 

AI is spreading beyond venture-backed startups, as well. This is particularly evident among LLCs: the structure often chosen by small teams and bootstrapped businesses for its flexibility. In January 2023, 5% of Atlas LLCs identified as AI companies; today, it’s 22%.

This rise in AI-focused formations might be associated with a decline in the share of funded Atlas startups. Total Delaware C corp formations are up 28% in 2025, according to the Delaware Division of Corporations, but Carta data shows pre-seed deal count in H1 2025 is largely unchanged from last year. Among Atlas startups at least 6 months old in 2025, only 2.2% have fundraised within 3 months of incorporating—down from 3.1% in 2024. With Crunchbase reporting a 40% year-over-year increase in AI startups’ share of global seed capital, founders might be gravitating toward AI to improve their odds.

One possible explanation for the funding rate decline is that founders can do more with less capital. Since 2019, the average time to first hire within 1 year has increased nearly 49%, according to Carta data. Startups are operating lean longer, enabled by AI coding assistants, no-code development platforms, and automated marketing tools that reduce the need for early headcount.

The focus is shifting to agents

Among Atlas startups that say they’re building AI infrastructure, copilots, or agents, 44% are building agents in 2025—up from 27% in 2024.

2023 AI startups focused on infrastructure and copilots—AI assistants embedded in existing workflows. Now the focus has shifted to AI agents: autonomous systems that can act on a person’s behalf, from qualifying sales leads and resolving support tickets to completing purchases and writing code. As the underlying models commoditize, founders are building executors, not assistants—systems that can browse, buy, research, and analyze without human input. Atlas formation data suggests that’s where founders are seeing the opportunity.

Start today with Atlas

With Atlas, you can set up your company, open a bank account, accept payments, and fundraise within two business days:

• Incorporation and equity: Incorporate your company, retrieve its EIN, set up founder equity vesting, and file 83(b) tax elections.
• Investor-ready documents: Your company’s legal documents are developed with Cooley, a leading law firm for startups.
• Resources to grow: Access $50,000 in partner perks, $2,500 in Stripe credits, and the ability to fundraise with SAFEs from the Atlas Dashboard.

Learn more about Stripe Atlas.