Research on startup funding and the investors behind it.
FundingWatcher is a research publication of Haus Research covering startup funding rounds and the investors behind them.
Research
All reports →Average seed round size by year
The average seed round in 2026 is $6.29 million and the median is $2.31 million, against $3.09 million and $1.64 million in 2024.
Almost no YC startup raises a Series A within a year of Demo Day
Of 2,916 YC companies from Winter 2021 to Summer 2025, 23 (0.8%) show a Series A dated within 12 months of Demo Day in Crunchbase; Spring 2025 has the highest batch share, 4 of 144.
How many unicorns are there?
There are 1,063 private companies tagged as unicorns in Crunchbase in October 2026, 572 of them in the United States, and 472 have not raised a round since 2022.
40% of Product Hunt's top launches from 2015 to 2018 still run on their domain. Startup Launch List is now a casino
Of the 1,461 most upvoted Product Hunt launches of each day from 2015 to 2018, 591 (40.5%) still run the same product on the same domain, 149 domains no longer resolve and 48 serve gambling sites.
YC's 2015 to 2019 batches made 43 unicorns. Techstars' made 7.
Of 1,324 YC companies from the 2015 to 2019 batches, 43 carry a unicorn tag; of 1,484 Techstars accelerator companies from the same years, 7 are unicorns by Techstars' own count.
Startup funding by country and city, 2026
Venture rounds from January to September 2026 by country and city: 15,185 rounds, $286.1B; $97.9B in rounds under $100M; $61.0B in early-stage rounds under $100M.
Rivals raised SaaS prices as often as private equity did, but only 5% hid them (PE: 33%)
20 SaaS companies without private equity, matched by category and size to companies in our private equity census and checked on the same Wayback dates, raised prices at 45% (private equity 44%) and took them off the page at 5% (private equity 33%).
San Francisco has as many AI startups as the entire EU
FundingWatcher lists 4,067 funded AI startups in San Francisco and 4,147 in all 27 EU countries combined; the San Francisco companies raised $529.5 billion, 8.9 times the EU's $59.8 billion.
Product Hunt used to be indie hackers. Now it is dominated by funded startups
On four hand-checked days in 2016 and 2020, 3 of 12 top-three Product Hunt products came from funded companies; on two days in 2025, all 6 did.
71% of SaaS companies bought by private equity raised or hid their prices
Of 75 software companies that listed prices before a private equity deal, 53 have since raised them or taken them off the pricing page; 2,273 deals from 2008 to 2025 checked on the Wayback Machine.
Since 2022, .ai has made more unicorns than .com
Of the 51 unicorns founded in 2022 or later, 20 use a .ai domain and 17 a .com, from 6,342 and 22,261 funded startups.
For every unicorn founded a decade ago, 57 seed startups are dead
Of 30,826 seed-stage startups founded 2015 to 2017, 170 became unicorns and about 9,710 are dead, 57 for each unicorn; 31.9% raised a Series A or later.
1 in 35 old Product Hunt launches is now a casino
About 1,230 Product Hunt launch domains from 2014 to 2019 now serve casinos, slots or betting, from 69 of 2,400 sampled (2.9%); launches with 100+ upvotes were hit almost twice as often.
YC broke up with .com in 2022
.com covered 95.5% of Winter 2011 YC companies with a domain and 47.5% of Summer 2026; .ai went from zero to a high of 37.0% in Summer 2025.
Accel backed CrowdStrike and SentinelOne, and 68 more pairs of competitors
Accel holds 69 pairs of portfolio companies that describe the same product, against 15.76 expected from a random portfolio of the same size.
YC batches got twice as likely to repeat an earlier YC company, from 18% to 47%
A 2013 to 2019 YC batch had a close match among 500 earlier YC companies for 18.3% of its companies; in Summer 2025 it was 46.5%.
Full lists as CSV
One-time per list| List | Rows | |
|---|---|---|
| Startups funded in the last 90 days | 4,402 | |
| Angel investors | 23,916 | |
| Venture capital firms | 23,051 | |
| Private equity firms | 9,693 | |
| Investment partners | 6,734 | |
| Startup accelerators | 3,207 | |
| Micro VC funds | 2,364 | |
| All lists: 79,515 investors and 166,747 startups, two files | 246,262 |
Sample rows
first 10 of 4,402, Startups funded in the last 90 days| name | website | founded | employees | city | region | country | sectors | funding_stage | last_round | last_round_date | last_round_usd | total_raised_usd | rounds | investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Investors
All investors →Most active investors
Ranked by recorded investments.
Type distribution
Investors by type.
Investment stages
Investors listed by the stage they back.
By type and investment stage
Startups
All startups →Round, investor, startup
Every table row is a round, the investors on it and the company that raised it.
By sector and funding stage
The figures behind the reports
Current value and data date for each figure and table.
Figures and tables