Who buys AI startups?
Of the 138 products in FalcoScan's AI Graveyard (data updated 7 October 2026), NVIDIA and Canva bought the most: 4 each (NVIDIA: OctoAI, Run:ai, Gretel and Lepton AI; Canva: Remove.bg, Smartmockups, Unscreen and Affinity). In all, 88 companies bought products in the graveyard, and 14 bought two or more. A merger of equals, such as Beekeeper and LumApps, is not counted as a purchase.
Every company that bought one, 88 in all
Most purchases first. A product bought and later shut down counts for its buyer. Buyers of two or more have their own page.
| Buyer | Bought | Products, with the year bought |
|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA | 4 | OctoAI (2024), Run:ai (2024), Gretel (2025), Lepton AI (2025) |
| Canva | 4 | Remove.bg (2021), Smartmockups (2021), later shut down, Unscreen (2021), later shut down, Affinity (2024) |
| 3 | Mutable.ai, Alter (2022), Wiz (2026) | |
| Adobe | 2 | Frame.io (2021), Semrush (2026) |
| Palo Alto Networks | 2 | Protect AI (2025), CyberArk (2026) |
| Databricks | 2 | Redash (2020), Tecton (2025) |
| Figma | 2 | Magician (2023), Modyfi (2025) |
| Meta | 2 | Rewind, later shut down, PlayHT (2025) |
| Stripe | 2 | TaxJar (2021), Lemon Squeezy (2024) |
| Workday | 2 | Adaptive Insights (2018), Evisort (2024) |
| Microsoft | 2 | Clipchamp (2021), Nuance (2022) |
| Uber | 2 | Careem (2020), Cornershop (2021) |
| Twilio | 2 | SendGrid (2019), Segment (2020) |
| Cursor | 2 | Continue, later shut down, Koala, later shut down |
| Backstory | 1 | Pod (2026) |
| Capital One | 1 | Brex (2026) |
| Coupa | 1 | Tonkean (2026) |
| Coursera | 1 | Udemy (2026) |
| JWX | 1 | Augie (2026) |
| Legora | 1 | Wexler (2026) |
| The Guild | 1 | Grafbase (2026) |
| Agorapulse | 1 | Mention (2025) |
| Appier | 1 | AdCreative.ai (2025) |
| Bending Spoons | 1 | Vimeo (2025) |
| Capacity | 1 | Verbio (2025) |
| ClickUp | 1 | Qatalog (2025) |
| Fivetran | 1 | Census (2025) |
| Fullcast | 1 | Copy.ai (2025) |
| HiBob | 1 | Mosaic (2025) |
| LevelBlue | 1 | Cybereason (2025) |
| Panorama Education | 1 | Class Companion (2025) |
| Positive | 1 | Surfer (2025) |
| Resolve | 1 | Espressive (2025) |
| SEOptimer | 1 | GrowthBar (2025) |
| Together AI | 1 | Refuel.ai (2025) |
| Buxton | 1 | Elevar (2024) |
| Dropbox | 1 | Reclaim.ai (2024) |
| Employer.com | 1 | Bench (2024) |
| Freepik | 1 | Magnific (2024) |
| Grammarly | 1 | Coda (2024) |
| Hootsuite | 1 | Talkwalker (2024) |
| Jasper | 1 | Clipdrop (2024) |
| Kakao | 1 | Kakao Brain (2024) |
| Lumivero | 1 | ATLAS.ti (2024) |
| Panopto | 1 | Elai (2024) |
| Salesloft | 1 | Drift (2024) |
| Sema4.ai | 1 | Robocorp (2024) |
| Typeface | 1 | Narrato (2024) |
| Webflow | 1 | Intellimize (2024) |
| Atlassian | 1 | Loom (2023) |
| BioNTech | 1 | InstaDeep (2023) |
| Cisco | 1 | Armorblox (2023) |
| CrowdStrike | 1 | Bionic (2023) |
| Francisco Partners and TPG | 1 | New Relic (2023) |
| HubSpot | 1 | Clearbit (2023) |
| ADT | 1 | IOTAS (2022) |
| Ascential (parent of Perpetua) | 1 | Sellics (2022) |
| BILL | 1 | Finmark (2022) |
| Chargebee | 1 | Numberz (2022) |
| Conductor | 1 | ContentKing (2022) |
| Ericsson | 1 | Vonage (2022) |
| Mastercard | 1 | Dynamic Yield (2022) |
| Paddle | 1 | ProfitWell (2022) |
| PagerDuty | 1 | Catalytic (2022) |
| Skillsoft | 1 | Codecademy (2022) |
| Twitch | 1 | Spirit AI (2022) |
| Unity | 1 | Ziva Dynamics (2022) |
| Walker & Dunlop | 1 | GeoPhy (2022) |
| Alpine Software Group | 1 | Sendible (2021) |
| Altus Group | 1 | Reonomy (2021) |
| Contentsquare | 1 | Hotjar (2021) |
| Getty Images | 1 | Unsplash (2021) |
| Intelerad | 1 | Ambra Health (2021) |
| Intuit | 1 | Mailchimp (2021) |
| JLL | 1 | Skyline AI (2021) |
| Litera | 1 | Kira Systems (2021) |
| Mitratech | 1 | ContractRoom (2021) |
| Nuance | 1 | Saykara (2021) |
| Renaissance Learning | 1 | Nearpod (2021) |
| Astute | 1 | Socialbakers (2020) |
| DataRobot | 1 | Paxata (2019) |
| WhiteSource (now Mend) | 1 | Renovate (2019) |
| Envato | 1 | Placeit (2018) |
| 1 | Glint (2018) | |
| Siemens | 1 | Mendix (2018) |
| Artlist | 1 | HitFilm, later shut down |
| Netflix | 1 | Ready Player Me, later shut down |
| Walmart | 1 | Botmock, later shut down |
Questions and answers
Which companies buy the most AI startups?
Of the 138 products in FalcoScan's AI Graveyard (data updated 7 October 2026), NVIDIA and Canva bought the most: 4 each (NVIDIA: OctoAI, Run:ai, Gretel and Lepton AI; Canva: Remove.bg, Smartmockups, Unscreen and Affinity). In all, 88 companies bought products in the graveyard, and 14 bought two or more. A merger of equals, such as Beekeeper and LumApps, is not counted as a purchase.
Do acquired AI startups keep running?
Of the 99 AI products bought outright in FalcoScan's AI Graveyard (data updated 7 October 2026), sources confirm 33 still run and 4 were discontinued after the deal; for the other 62, no source has said. Another 8 products were bought and later shut down.
Which AI startups were shut down by the companies that bought them?
According to FalcoScan's AI Graveyard (data updated 7 October 2026), 12 AI products were shut down or discontinued after a purchase: Botmock (bought by Walmart, shut down in 2021), Continue (bought by Cursor, shut down in 2026), HitFilm (bought by Artlist, shut down in 2025), Koala (bought by Cursor, shut down in 2025), Magician (bought by Figma in 2023, since discontinued), OctoAI (bought by NVIDIA in 2024, since discontinued), Ready Player Me (bought by Netflix, shut down in 2026), Rewind (bought by Meta, shut down in 2025), Skyline AI (bought by JLL in 2021, since discontinued), Smartmockups (bought by Canva in 2021, shut down in 2024), Unscreen (bought by Canva in 2021, shut down in 2026) and Ziva Dynamics (bought by Unity in 2022, since discontinued).
Every product in the AI Graveyard How a product is marked shut down or acquired