Key Takeaways
- • Andreessen Horowitz, working with fintech Mercury, ranked the top 50 AI-native application-layer companies by startup spend across Mercury's database of over 200,000 customers, covering June through August 2025.
- • Horizontal applications account for 60% of the list versus 40% for vertical applications, with general LLM assistants OpenAI (#1), Anthropic (#2) and Perplexity (#12) leading.
- • Creative tools are the largest single category, with ten names led by Freepik (#4) and ElevenLabs (#5).
- • Of 17 vertical application companies, 12 focus on augmenting human employees while five aim to act as end-to-end "AI employees."
- • Replit generated roughly 15x more revenue than Lovable from the Mercury customers examined, reversing the order seen in a16z's consumer traffic ranking.
- • Nearly 70% of listed companies can be adopted by individuals and brought into teams without an enterprise license, and 12 also appeared on a16z's Consumer Top 100.
Summary
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) published its AI Application Spending Report, which uses transaction data from Mercury, a fintech company that provides banking and financial workflow services to startups, to show where early-stage companies are actually spending on AI. The analysis covers spend across more than 200,000 Mercury customers from June to August 2025 and ranks the top 50 AI-native application-layer companies. Unlike infrastructure providers such as cloud services and GPU vendors, which were excluded, these companies show where AI is being applied in products and workflows. a16z notes the data captures only transactions made through Mercury, such as ACH, IO card spend and wires, and excludes spend on non-Mercury cards and Mercury Personal customers. Where Google spend combines Google Cloud and Gemini models, the two could not be separated.
Horizontal tools, designed for productivity across any employee, make up 60% of the list. General LLM assistants lead, with OpenAI at #1, Anthropic at #2 and Perplexity at #12, followed by Merlin AI at #30. Workspaces that give access to LLMs within existing files, including Notion (#10) and Manus (#33), also appear. Meeting support is another major horizontal category, dominated by notetakers such as Fyxer (#7), Happyscribe (#36), Plaud (#38), Otter AI (#41) and Read AI (#49), with Cluely (#26) offering real-time in-meeting feedback. a16z argues that creative tools and vibe coding are becoming horizontal, previously the domain of marketing, design and engineering teams. Creative tools form the largest single category with ten names, led by Freepik and ElevenLabs.
Among vertical applications, a16z finds that most tools currently augment human staff rather than replace them: 12 of 17 vertical companies focus on supercharging employees, while five, including Crosby Legal (#27), Cognition (#34), 11x (#37), Serval (#39) and Alma (#42), aim to complete workflows end-to-end. a16z expects more agentic and AI-native services businesses, since new startups may not be locked into multi-year contracts with traditional legal or accounting providers. Popular vertical categories include customer service (Lorikeet, Customer.io, Ada, Crisp), sales and go-to-market (Instantly, Clay, 11x) and recruiting and HR (Micro1, Metaview, Applaud).
Vibe coding has made a notable enterprise transition, according to the report. Replit (#3) ranks as the top product after OpenAI and Anthropic, and generated about 15 times more revenue than Lovable from the Mercury customers examined, even though Lovable ranked higher in a16z's consumer web-traffic list. a16z attributes this to Replit's enterprise-grade functionality, including autonomous agents that can run for hours and built-in databases, authentication and secure publishing, alongside enterprise controls.
Finally, a16z reports that nearly 70% of listed companies can be adopted by individuals and brought into teams without an enterprise license, and 12 companies also appeared on its Consumer Top 100. Eleven of these started as individual products and later added team or enterprise functions. a16z notes that OpenAI's revenue split, which was 75% consumer as of last October, has recent estimates closer to 50/50.
Horizontal tools, designed for productivity across any employee, make up 60% of the list. General LLM assistants lead, with OpenAI at #1, Anthropic at #2 and Perplexity at #12, followed by Merlin AI at #30. Workspaces that give access to LLMs within existing files, including Notion (#10) and Manus (#33), also appear. Meeting support is another major horizontal category, dominated by notetakers such as Fyxer (#7), Happyscribe (#36), Plaud (#38), Otter AI (#41) and Read AI (#49), with Cluely (#26) offering real-time in-meeting feedback. a16z argues that creative tools and vibe coding are becoming horizontal, previously the domain of marketing, design and engineering teams. Creative tools form the largest single category with ten names, led by Freepik and ElevenLabs.
Among vertical applications, a16z finds that most tools currently augment human staff rather than replace them: 12 of 17 vertical companies focus on supercharging employees, while five, including Crosby Legal (#27), Cognition (#34), 11x (#37), Serval (#39) and Alma (#42), aim to complete workflows end-to-end. a16z expects more agentic and AI-native services businesses, since new startups may not be locked into multi-year contracts with traditional legal or accounting providers. Popular vertical categories include customer service (Lorikeet, Customer.io, Ada, Crisp), sales and go-to-market (Instantly, Clay, 11x) and recruiting and HR (Micro1, Metaview, Applaud).
Vibe coding has made a notable enterprise transition, according to the report. Replit (#3) ranks as the top product after OpenAI and Anthropic, and generated about 15 times more revenue than Lovable from the Mercury customers examined, even though Lovable ranked higher in a16z's consumer web-traffic list. a16z attributes this to Replit's enterprise-grade functionality, including autonomous agents that can run for hours and built-in databases, authentication and secure publishing, alongside enterprise controls.
Finally, a16z reports that nearly 70% of listed companies can be adopted by individuals and brought into teams without an enterprise license, and 12 companies also appeared on its Consumer Top 100. Eleven of these started as individual products and later added team or enterprise functions. a16z notes that OpenAI's revenue split, which was 75% consumer as of last October, has recent estimates closer to 50/50.
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