The nanocorp boom
There’s a running debate about when AI will show up in the macro data. It already has. You just have to know where to look.
The solopreneur inflection
US business formations surged during the pandemic. That wasn't surprising. What is surprising is that they're accelerating again right now—and their composition has changed.
The recent growth is coming entirely from what the Census Bureau calls "non-employer firms." Solopreneurs. These used to be dismissed as lifestyle businesses; there was a ceiling on what one person could do. Increasingly though, solopreneurs are building global commercial operations, aided by AI capable of automating spreadsheets, customer support, and copywriting.
The number of solopreneurs earning over $100,000 per year has increased a third since 2022. Nearly 5 million Americans now make a living running solo companies. Hundreds of thousands are clearing a million.
And this isn't just a US story. New business registrations are up 40% in the Netherlands, 70% in Finland, 80% in France. The recent surge in dynamism is happening across advanced economies.
We see this phenomenon playing out in the Stripe data too.
This chart shows the number of new businesses launching on Stripe every month. During the pandemic, it took four years (2020-2024) for the pace to double. The most recent doubling happened in just over one.
Stripe Atlas, which lets founders automate US incorporation, just celebrated its 100,000th new business—way ahead of schedule. Incorporations in the first quarter of 2026 were almost double any quarter in 2025.
And Atlas startups are growing faster, too. So far, the 2026 cohort is tracking (in aggregate) to 5x the revenue of the ‘25 class at the same point in its lifecycle.
Old playbook: get big, then go global. New playbook: go global to get big.
One reason these new firms grow so quickly is that they’re born global. Five years ago, 11.6% of companies on Stripe earned most of their revenue outside their home country. That number has since doubled.
And they aren't just selling into the US, UK, and Germany. Among companies making most of their revenue abroad, roughly a quarter earn most of it from outside the Top 10 global markets. The long tail is real.
The Top 100 AI startups tell an even more international story: among this cohort, the median sells into 55 markets within their first year, and earns most of its revenue outside its home country.
Consider Emergent Labs, an AI platform for building and deploying full-stack web and mobile apps. The company was founded in the US in 2024, and is already making 70% of its revenue from international sales. And Emergent is doing material business—at least 1% of total revenue—in each of 16 countries.
AI isn’t missing from the data, it’s showing up in the most important place: more companies, scaling faster.