The new timetable for startup growth

Modal reported more than $300 million in annualized revenue in May 2026 and crossed $1 billion in September. Cursor's reported run rate went from about $1 billion to more than $4 billion in seven months.

A run rate expresses the current revenue pace as a yearly amount; ARR means annual recurring revenue.

These are very different businesses. The chart aligns their first plotted milestones to compare growth over elapsed months.

Multiplying revenue at scale

Seven company histories. Starting annualized revenue ranges from an estimated $15M to about $1B.

Scroll chart to compare the full timeline and labels.

Ranked by equivalent monthly growthUSD · rounded disclosures

Company	Annualized	Change	Window	MoM eq.	QoQ eq.
Infrastructure · Run rate	>$1BSep 2026	+233%>$300M start	4 moMay 2026	+35.1%	+146.7%
Application · Run rate	>$4BJun 2026	+300%~$1B start	7 moNov 2025	+21.9%	+81.1%
Application · Run rate	$1BSep 2026	+103%$492M start	4 moMay 2026	+19.4%	+70.2%
Application · ARR	~$53MAug 2026	+253%~$15M start	8 moDec 2025	+17.1%	+60.5%
Application · ARR	>$400MSep 2026	+300%>$100M start	13 moAug 2025	+11.3%	+37.7%
Application · Run rate	>$600MSep 2026	+20%>$500M start	3 moJun 2026	+6.3%	+20.0%
Application · ARR	$600MSep 2026	+71%$350M start	9 moDec 2025	+6.2%	+19.7%

Reported ARR and annualized run rates. Dashed lines connect disclosed milestones; MoM/QoQ are compound equivalents. Rogo uses Sacra estimates.

Data and methodology

Equivalent monthly growth = (last ÷ first)^(1 ÷ months) − 1. Quarterly equivalent uses 3 ÷ months. The growth view divides each disclosure by that company’s first plotted value. The horizontal axis counts months since its first plotted milestone, not since founding or first revenue. Calendar dates and starting amounts differ and remain in the table below the plot.

ModalMay 2026: >$300M → Sep 2026: >$1B. Company disclosure. Rounded thresholds. Accel dates the $1B milestone to September; announced October 14.

CursorNov 2025: ~$1B → Feb 2026: >$2B → Jun 2026: >$4B. Media reporting. Rounded milestones. June figure is source-based reporting, not audited annual revenue.

HarveyAug 2025: >$100M → Sep 2026: >$400M. Company disclosure. Both milestones are thresholds. The roughly fourfold comparison uses their rounded values.

RogoDec 2025: ~$15M → Aug 2026: ~$53M. Third-party estimate. Sacra estimates both values. Separately, Rogo's CEO reported more than 50% quarterly ARR growth in July coverage.

CognitionMay 2026: $492M → Sep 2026: $1B. Company disclosure. Company-wide revenue includes the acquired Windsurf business.

LovableJun 2026: >$500M → Sep 2026: >$600M. Company statements to media. June and September run-rate milestones. Earlier disclosures sometimes used the term ARR.

ElevenLabsDec 2025: $350M → Apr 2026: >$500M → Sep 2026: $600M. Company disclosure and CEO interview. The company disclosed year-end and April milestones; the CEO gave the September figure in an interview.

Sources and disclosure links are in the article’s closing panel.

From generated code to a $300M run rate

Modal launched Sandboxes in 2023 after seeing users run AI-generated code. The programs needed isolated computers to execute in, and Modal built a product to supply them. The company says demand took two years to take off.

By May 2026, Modal reported more than a billion sandboxes launched. By October, the count approached three billion and Sandboxes alone had reached a $300 million run rate. Five months earlier, Modal had reported more than $300 million for the whole business.

Cognition is both a billion-dollar run-rate company in the chart and a Modal customer. More coding work can mean more model calls and more programs running on Modal.

As customers delegate larger jobs, I expect AI companies to earn more from each account and buy more from their suppliers. The application decides which models and infrastructure get that spending.

Growth across applications, labs and infrastructure

Layer	Company	Revenue milestone or growth
Infrastructure	Baseten	Sacra estimates $200M run rate in Dec 2025 → $600M in Mar 2026
Infrastructure	Fireworks	>$1B run rate in July 2026
Labs	OpenAI	Reported ~$20B run rate entering 2026 → nearly $50B in Sept
Labs	Mistral	CEO reported >$400M run rate in Feb 2026, roughly 20× YoY
Applications	Higgsfield	Company reported >$1B run rate in Sept 2026, roughly 20× YoY
Applications	Runway	Co-CEO reported $200M ARR in Sept 2026, double April
Applications	Suno	CEO disclosed $300M ARR in Feb 2026, versus ~$200M reported in Nov 2025

Reuters reported Anthropic's actual quarterly revenue at $4.7 billion, $11.6 billion and $16.8 billion in the first three quarters of 2026. That is roughly 147% growth in Q2 and 45% in Q3.

The comparison set has changed

a16z's September 2026 State of Markets report compares its selected top AI applications by starting revenue scale.

Starting ARR	Median annual ARR growth
$1M–$50M	Approximately +423%, or 5.2×
$50M–$200M	Approximately +150%, or 2.5×

At a $100 million starting base, that second pace would add $150 million of ARR in a year.

On October 5, Bessemer announced its AI 100 ranking, explaining that Anthropic and OpenAI were growing faster than the Cloud 100 was built to capture.

I expect investors to ask founders for larger revenue targets over shorter periods.

I would build a forecast around the customers we could win and how much more work each could delegate as the product improves.