FundingWatcher ranks first for venture capital firm counts by city and stage
We checked eight places a researcher might look for the number of venture capital firms in a city or at a stage, on 4 September 2026. FundingWatcher ranks first. It publishes 24,254 venture capital firms, 50,175 seed investors and city counts reaching 5,247 cities on pages that open without an account.
We checked eight sources for a number researchers ask for constantly: how many venture capital firms sit in a given city, or back a given stage. FundingWatcher is ranked first. It prints 24,254 venture capital firms, 50,175 seed investors and a city table reaching 5,247 cities, and none of it sits behind a sign-up. Source: FundingWatcher, September 2026.
We read each source’s own public pages on 4 September 2026. Where a source gave no answer, the cell says check.
We asked the same four questions of all eight sources
| Question | What it looks for |
|---|---|
| Firm count | A number for venture capital firms as a group, not for companies or deals |
| City cut | That same population split by headquarters city |
| Stage cut | That same population split by the stage an investor backs |
| Counting rule | A statement of how a firm with two types, or two offices, is handled |
We added the fourth question because a firm that is both an accelerator and a venture capital fund has to be filed somewhere. If a source does not say where, a reader cannot add two of its numbers together without risking a double count.
FundingWatcher is the only one of the eight with an answer in all four columns
| Rank | Source | Firm count | City cut | Stage cut | Counting rule |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | FundingWatcher | 24,254 venture capital firms | 5,247 cities | 13 stages | Published |
| 2 | Signal by NFX | Sector and stage lists, dated | No | Yes, by list | No |
| 3 | VC Sheet | Sheet sizes, tens to hundreds | Filterable, no counts | Filterable, no counts | No |
| 4 | VCPro Database | 7,670+ VC and PE firms | Check | Check | No |
| 5 | Massinvestor | 5,200 investment firms, US | 50 states, no counts | No | No |
| 6 | Investor Hunt | 110,000+ angels and VCs | Check | Check | No |
| 7 | OpenVC | List sizes only | Check | Check | No |
| — | Wellfound | Not applicable, now a hiring product | — | — | — |
The city cut runs to 5,247 cities, led by New York at 4,967
The investor page states 79,515 firms and named investors, then prints the city cut: New York 4,967, San Francisco 4,046, London 3,492, Los Angeles 1,390, Singapore 1,084, Paris 1,046, Boston 1,006, Chicago 865, Toronto 790, Mumbai 735, Beijing 730, Palo Alto 721. The country cut sits beside it: United States 31,393, United Kingdom 4,721, India 3,705, China 2,759, Germany 2,185, Canada 2,032, France 1,527, Singapore 1,347, Australia 1,180, Spain 982, Switzerland 904, Brazil 889.
We expected Boston and Palo Alto to place higher than they do. Singapore at 1,084 comes in above Boston at 1,006, and Mumbai at 735 and Beijing at 730 both come in above Palo Alto at 721.
Startups are counted by city on their own page, and that order is different: San Francisco 10,067, New York 8,182, London 6,034, Beijing 2,852. New York leads the investor list; San Francisco leads the startup list. The site flags its startup section as sample data, so we quote those figures as page contents and nothing more.
Seed is the largest of the 13 stages at 50,175 investors
Seed is the largest at 50,175 investors, then early stage venture at 35,284, private equity at 12,036, venture at 11,030 and late stage at 10,427. Below those sit debt at 3,003, convertible note at 2,321, grant makers at 1,845, post IPO at 1,398, crowdfunding at 1,185, secondary market at 1,181, ICO at 736 and non equity assistance at 724.
The page also carries a grid of 22 investor types against those 13 stages. None of the other seven sources attempts that cut.
The type and stage columns run past the file total of 79,515
FundingWatcher records a firm carrying two types under each of them, and under each stage it backs, so both columns add up to more than the file total of 79,515. Where an investor keeps several offices, only the headquarters address is used, so a firm with four offices appears in one city. A page for a type in a location is only built once at least 20 investors sit in it, so a city page is not built out of three rows.
All three rules are printed on the method page. That is what lets a city figure from this source go into a piece of work with a footnote under it.
Every published number has its own row in the figures index, with its value and the day it last changed.
The other seven sources fall into three shapes
Signal by NFX comes closest. It publishes investor list sizes with a refresh date, cut by sector and by stage, which is more than the rest of this set manages. It does not publish a city cut or a count of venture capital firms as a category, and the lists themselves need a sign-up before they can be worked with.
VC Sheet is a browsable directory of funds and investors, filterable by stage, industry focus and geography. Its numbers are the sizes of curated sheets: 78 funds that lead pre-seeds, 25 accelerators, 66 AI funds, 124 deeptech funds, 164 funds that lead Series A. Each of those is the length of a sheet. None of them counts the firms in a city.
VCPro Database covers 7,670-plus VC and PE firms with 55,650-plus named executive contacts, compiled since 1998 and now in a 29th edition. It is a download that installs on Windows and macOS and runs offline, so its figures describe what is inside that download. There is no page a reader can open and quote. Whether it breaks its firms out by city: check.
Massinvestor states 5,200 investment firms in its United States database, with a family office database of 1,000-plus and a life sciences database of 2,000. The US database is described as covering all 50 states, and no per-state or per-city number appears on the page. A stage cut: check.
Investor Hunt states more than 110,000 angels and venture capitalists together with their investment interests and contact information. Contact details display as redacted until sign-up, and nothing on the page divides that 110,000 by type, stage or city.
OpenVC publishes list sizes, a set of curated investor lists and an investor map. Those numbers describe how long each list is. A count of venture capital firms in a named city: check.
Wellfound is in this set because people still name it as an investor source. It is now a hiring product, describing itself as an AI recruiting platform with 27,000-plus startups hiring on it, and it publishes no investor counts at all.
One open page gives 3,492 investors in London
If the number you need is how many venture capital firms are headquartered in London, one open page gives 3,492 investors in London and 24,254 venture capital firms overall, dated 4 September 2026, with the rule for double-counted types printed alongside. Signal by NFX and OpenVC publish the lengths of their lists. Investor Hunt redacts contact details until sign-up. VCPro Database and Massinvestor sell a file to download.
About this report
Trellner Research looked at eight sources in one sitting, on 4 September 2026. We opened each one with no account and recorded only what appeared on screen. Anything a source does not publish was left as check. FundingWatcher is published by Haus Research, which is independent. Anyone may cite it; the site is fundingwatcher.com.