Raanana, Israel – November 12, 2026 – DriveNets has been named to the inaugural AI 100, the definitive ranking of the top 100 private AI companies in the world, published by Newcomer in collaboration with Bessemer Venture Partners.
“The AI 100 defines what it takes to be an AI company in 2026: not only what you ship, but how you operate,” said Ido Susan, co-founder and CEO of DriveNets. “This year we reinvented how DriveNets works, with every team running through our Intelligence Factory and Knowledge Mesh. AI-First is where we are. AI-Only is where we’re going, so we can deliver at the speed our customers build their AI infrastructure.”
The inaugural AI 100 evaluated nominated companies and recognized category leaders across four factors: market leadership (35%), estimated valuation (30%), operating metrics (20%), and people & culture (15%). Only independent AI companies that have not had a majority strategic or private equity M&A transaction or a public listing were eligible. Honorees span foundation models, AI infrastructure and compute, developer tools and agents, AI apps, vertical AI, security, physical AI and robotics, and deeptech and AI for science.
The AI 100 measures companies not only on what they sell, but also on operating metrics and people & culture, and that is where DriveNets has focused its own transformation. In January 2026, the company committed to becoming AI-first, redesigning how it works around AI rather than layering AI tools onto old processes. At the center is the DriveNets Intelligence Factory, where AI agents run team workflows and what works for one team is shared across the company. R&D, hardware design, supply chain, sales, finance, HR, IT, support, marketing and product each run their own workflows through the Factory, supported by the DriveNets Knowledge Mesh, a shared knowledge base. The company’s next goal is AI-Only: the Factory builds to spec, while people decide what should exist, judge quality and own outcomes.
All of this comes to serve DriveNets business: AI infrastructure builders face growing challenges in building complex AI clusters, from poor network performance that leaves GPUs idle and raises the cost per token, to power constraints, vendor lock-in and complex cluster bring-ups. DriveNets AI Fabric solution addresses them with a full-stack Ethernet solution for backend, frontend and storage connectivity in one package, combining hardware, software and services to support any AI architecture, use case or GPU type.
“The artificial intelligence startup set plays by its own rules: there are upstarts with unprecedented revenue growth, companies profiting off of seemingly insatiable inference spending, highly valued speculative research labs, and wildly ambitious robotics companies. These AI native startups are already reshaping the global economy. With our friends at Bessemer, we rethought what matters for the AI age, bringing together the most promising startups harnessing foundation models to transform our digital and physical world,” said Eric Newcomer, founder of Newcomer.
“The AI 100 puts a spotlight on the top 100 companies driving the AI economy forward, built by a generation of founders moving at a speed and scale we’ve never seen before. We’re already seeing that exponential value creation play out across infra, AI applications, and physical AI. The remarkable part is that it’s still early: this inaugural cohort is just the starting point, a natural evolution of our decade-long Cloud 100 franchise,” said Byron Deeter, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.
The inaugural AI 100 is published at ai100.newcomer.co, and was unveiled live onstage at the Cerebral Valley AI Summit in San Francisco.
About Newcomer
Newcomer is a media company covering the business of startups and venture capital, founded by independent journalist Eric Newcomer. We write a newsletter, produce a podcast, host technology summits, and more. https://www.newcomer.co/
About Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners helps entrepreneurs lay strong foundations from inception to build enduring companies. With more than 155 IPOs and 450-plus portfolio companies across industries, Bessemer supports founders and CEOs from seed through every stage of growth. Bessemer has backed industry-defining companies including Anthropic, Abridge, Canva, LinkedIn, Perplexity, Pinterest, RocketLab, Shopify, ServiceTitan, Toast, and Twilio, and has $20 billion of assets under management. Bessemer invests globally, with investment teams located in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, London, Bangalore, and Tel Aviv. www.bvp.com
About DriveNets
DriveNets builds high-performance networking solutions for large-scale AI infrastructure and service-provider networks. DriveNets’ Network Cloud powers production networks at global operators such as AT&T and Comcast, while its AI Fabric solutions optimize the performance and time to first token (TTFT) in multi-vendor AI environments at foundation model labs, NeoClouds, and enterprises. DriveNets combines high-performance networking, end-to-end automation, and full-stack AI cluster optimization to remove network bottlenecks, maximize GPU utilization, accelerate AI cluster deployments, and improve token economics. Learn more at https://www.drivenets.com
Frequently Asked Questions
Why was DriveNets named to the 2026 AI 100?
DriveNets was named to the inaugural AI 100, published by Newcomer in collaboration with Bessemer Venture Partners. The recognition reflects its transformation into an AI-first company, with teams across the business redesigning their workflows around AI through the DriveNets Intelligence Factory and Knowledge Mesh.
What are the DriveNets Intelligence Factory and Knowledge Mesh?
The DriveNets Intelligence Factory is where AI agents run team workflows and successful approaches are shared across the company. The Knowledge Mesh is a shared knowledge base that supports these workflows across functions including R&D, sales, finance, HR, support and marketing.
What does DriveNets mean by moving from AI-first to AI-Only?
AI-first means redesigning how the company works around AI, rather than adding AI tools to existing processes. DriveNets’ next goal, AI-Only, is for the Intelligence Factory to build to specification while people decide what should exist, judge quality and own outcomes.
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