‘There’s so much pressure to be the company that went from zero to $100 million in X days’: Inside the sketchy world of ARR and inflated AI startup accounting

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‘There’s so much pressure to be the company that went from zero to $100 million in X days’: Inside the sketchy world of ARR and inflated AI startup accounting

fortune.com/2025/09/28/how-is-arr-calculated-startups-venture

The numbers are eye-popping.
Beginning in 2024, a stream of ‘holy shit’ growth metrics from VC-backed startups began to pop up on X [formerly Twitter]. In less than three years, Midjourney’s ARR went from zero to $200 million. In 20 months, ElevenLabs, a voice AI startup, saw its ARR…

This story appeared on fortune.com, 2025-09-28 10:00:00.