Backed by billions of dollars, hundreds of millions of social fans and from cities across the country. Forbes crunched the numbers on our annual Under 30 list.
By Alexandra York and Zoya Hasan, Forbes Staff
For the visionaries featured in our 14th annual Forbes 30 Under 30 class, the only constant is change—and this year we’re changing the way we list them as well. Every company is a tech company now, so we swapped out the Enterprise and Consumer Tech categories for AI and Transportation. What hasn’t changed: The outsize influence of 2025’s Under 30 honorees. They’re inventing new tech to treat tumors, expanding access to electric vehicle charging, making credit cards more secure, and even dreaming of reflective satellites that could bring the sun out at night.
To identify this standout group, Forbes editors worked with expert judges—including musician Big Sean, journalist Kara Swisher, America’s richest self-made woman Diane Hendricks, ballerina Misty Copeland, and billionaire venture capitalist Jim Breyer, among others—to review more than 10,000 candidates, evaluating them on impact, financials and creativity. The result: 600 young leaders steering the future of business and culture in 20 different industries.
Take 28-year-old Aidan Gomez, who’s building Cohere, a $940 million-backed startup that makes custom Gen AI chatbots for companies like tech giant Oracle and unicorn Notion. Demi Guo, 26, is another AI standout: Her platform, Pika, can turn a simple text prompt or still photo into a film (think special effects, explosions, animated characters, and more). Pika is valued at $470 million. Meanwhile, honorees like social media stars Drew Afualo, 29, and Bobbi Althoff, 27, both turned TikTok popularity into digital media empires spanning podcasts, YouTube channels, and, in Afualo’s case, a best-selling memoir.
Other 2025 listers are selling out shows across the globe. Grammy-nominated Noah Kahan, 27, brought 700,000 fans to stadiums like Boston’s Fenway Park in 2024, and country breakout star Shaboozey, 29, will take his cowboy boots across the pond for a European leg after closing his first-ever North American tour this fall.
This year’s cohort is backed by the biggest funders (they have $3.6 billion in cumulative investments) and counts fans across the globe (300M+ social media followers) who are following along their founder journey. Many are embracing new AI tools—even artists—to revolutionize how they create and work. As the world continues to rapidly change, the 2025 Under 30 class sees its youth as a superpower, bringing fresh perspectives and ideas to spark the future in which they want to live.
Read the full 2025 30 Under 30 list here. And for more on how we make the list, check out our methodology here.
30 under 30: By The Numbers
TOTAL FUNDING
$3.6 BILLION+
More than $3.6 billion raised in funding–matching last year’s class.
AVERAGE AGE
27
The average age of Under 30s held constant this year, and the youngest is 17-year-old Mason Thames from the Hollywood & Entertainment list. He’s an actor known for credits like Universal’s The Black Phone (2021), Netflix’s Incoming (2024) and Monster Summer (2024).
SELF-IDENTIFY AS PERSON OF COLOR
46%
Almost half of the individuals that appear on this year’s list self identify as a person of color, up from 43% last year.
IMMIGRANTS
23%
The immigrants on our list hail from countries including China, Turkey, India and Pakistan.
GENDER
43% FEMALE, 56% MALE, 1% NON-BINARY
This list was made up of 43% female (1% more than last year), 56% male, and just over 1% non-binary. Gender parity reached an all-time high this year.
GEN Z (27 OR YOUNGER)
50%
Just about half of this year’s class are members of Gen Z. This is the largest contingent of Gen Z to ever appear on the list, up from 36% last year, and 22% the year before.
(CO) FOUNDERS
69%
The majority (69%) of listmakers are founders or cofounders of a company, up from 67% last year. Many of the rest are actors, musicians or creators that are building their own brands.
TOP CITIES
New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and Boston
These are the top cities in which listers reside, in order of popularity. Austin joined the ranks of top 5 cities this year. Miami, Toronto, Chicago, Seattle and Atlanta make the top 10.
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
