Best startup funding databases in 2026
Updated 23 Oct 2026
Compared on what a reader can count without an account. Other sites read on 5 September 2026.
We compared eleven other sources of startup funding data against this site on 5 September 2026. We read each one the way a reader without a subscription reads it, through a proxy and with no account, so the table records what the public pages showed us on that day and nothing else. The columns are whether a page opens without an account, whether the site states a company count by sector, by city and by funding stage, whether a count carries the date it was taken, whether the counting rules are written down, and whether the site states a price. Counts for this site come from the file dated 23 October 2026: 166,525 funded startups and 79,515 investor entries.
Side by side
| Site | Free without an account | Count by sector | Count by city | Count by funding stage | Data date | Counting rules | Price stated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FundingWatcher | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Nothing sold |
| Crunchbase | check | check | check | check | check | check | check |
| PitchBook | check | check | check | check | check | check | check |
| CB Insights | Part | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Dealroom | check | check | check | check | check | check | Yes |
| Tracxn | Account | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Harmonic | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Growth List | Part | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| OpenVC | Part | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Preqin | Part | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| NFX Signal | Account | No | No | No | Yes | No | Free |
| VC Sheet | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Free |
Yes and No record what we found on pages that opened without an account on 5 September 2026. Part means some pages open and the rest need a plan. Account means the free tier needs a signup. Check means the site returned an error to us, so we could not look.
The entries
1. FundingWatcher
166,525 funded startups and 79,515 investor entries, counted from one file dated 23 October 2026. The startup side splits by sector, by funding stage, by city, by country and by accelerator: 6,047 companies in London, 83,103 whose most recent round was a seed round, 1,063 carrying a valuation of a billion dollars or more. A list page prints the size of the slice above the table and shows the top 100 rows. Six figures have a page each under /data/, and a figure page prints its value, the file date, the change since the previous snapshot and a citation line ready to copy. /method/ states the counting rules and the cases where a number is a floor rather than a total. No account, no API, no download.
2. Crunchbase
Crunchbase describes itself as private company data with predictive intelligence, and its about pages count inputs rather than coverage: 39 billion live private market signals, 30 million verified updates a year, 15 million predictions refreshed weekly. Company and investor profiles are the pages most people land on, and we could not read them on 5 September 2026, because crunchbase.com returned 403 to our requests and the pricing page rendered its plans without a figure we could read. That is why the whole row above says check. The shape of a profile is the older problem: it answers a question about one company and never states how many companies match a filter.
FundingWatcher vs Crunchbase · crunchbase.com
3. PitchBook
PitchBook covers venture capital, private equity and merger activity, and sells access by the seat. Every request we made to pitchbook.com on 5 September 2026 came back 403, from the homepage and from the pricing path, so we have nothing to put in the row above. PitchBook carries round by round histories, valuations, fund sizes and cap table detail, none of which this site has. Without a seat a reader gets the figure as it was quoted in someone else's article, and no open page underneath it says what was counted, or when.
FundingWatcher vs PitchBook · pitchbook.com
4. CB Insights
CB Insights sells a research terminal and a set of agents, and its own pricing page states coverage as 12 million private companies and 1,600 markets. Research posts open without an account and we read several on 5 September 2026. The pricing page names plans and a free trial and printed no price. What is missing is a number a reader can check: the figures sit inside briefs, none carries the date of the file behind it, and no page states how a company or a market was counted.
FundingWatcher vs CB Insights · cbinsights.com
5. Dealroom
Dealroom sells startup and ecosystem data, and its pricing page is the plainest of the eleven: Premium at 12,600 euros a year, Premium Plus at 17,000, both starting at three seats with export credits attached. That page opened for us on 5 September 2026. dealroom.co itself returned 403, including the guides path, so the rest of the row reads check. Dealroom's public writing is commissioned by cities and agencies and arrives as reports, which is more open than most of this list, and a figure inside a report still has no URL of its own to link at.
FundingWatcher vs Dealroom · dealroom.co
6. Tracxn
Tracxn states its coverage on the pricing page: 7.7 million companies, 290,000 investors, 1.8 million funding rounds, 226,000 acquisitions, 3,000 sectors. The Lite plan is free and needs a signup with no card; Premium reads Contact Sales, so no price is stated. Those coverage numbers describe the whole database rather than a slice of it, and we found no page that counts companies in one city or at one stage, says when the count was taken, or says what it leaves out.
FundingWatcher vs Tracxn · tracxn.com
7. Harmonic
Harmonic sells company and founder discovery to investors, with an API over the records. The page at /pricing is a form asking for an email so the company can book a demo. There is no price, no plan list, and no coverage number stated anywhere we could reach. The row above reads No rather than check because the pages opened for us and had nothing in them to count.
FundingWatcher vs Harmonic · harmonic.ai
8. Growth List
Growth List sells lists of recently funded companies as sales leads: 29 dollars a month for the Startup plan, 1,490 a year for Scale, sample reports readable without an email. The site states 10,000 funding announcements, 107 countries covered and 400 billion dollars of funding tracked. Those are totals for the product rather than counts of a published slice, and no page carries a date for the file behind them. The rows are contact records to email rather than a table to read, which is a different job from the one this list measures.
FundingWatcher vs Growth List · growthlist.co
9. OpenVC
OpenVC is an investor list for founders raising a round, with a fundraising CRM and deck tracking beside it. It states 12,000 VCs and angels in the investor database and 10,000 limited partners in a second one, and it prints a price: 99 dollars a month or 299 a year for Premium, with a free tier under it. There is no company side, so the sector, city and stage columns are empty by design. Nothing on the site states when the investor list was last counted.
FundingWatcher vs OpenVC · openvc.app
10. Preqin
Preqin covers private capital for allocators: funds, benchmarks, limited partner commitments. Its insight pages opened for us on 5 September 2026 and the marketing pages name Preqin Pro, but access runs through a demo request and no price is published. A free account is offered, which is more than several subscriptions here manage. It sits low on a list about startup funding because the unit is a fund and its performance, so no page counts companies by city or by stage.
FundingWatcher vs Preqin · preqin.com
11. NFX Signal
NFX Signal is free behind a signup, and it prints a count next to a date, which nothing else free here does. On 5 September 2026 its marketplace seed list read 3,191 investors updated 09/03/26, and its fintech seed list 8,771 investors updated 09/02/26. Those are investor counts rather than company counts, so it scores nothing in the sector, city and stage columns of this list. It is here because a date beside a count is the habit this list is measuring.
FundingWatcher vs NFX Signal · signal.nfx.com
12. VC Sheet
VC Sheet is browsable without an account and its sheets carry counts: 78 funds that lead pre-seed rounds, 164 that lead Series A, 124 deeptech funds, 25 accelerators. The site says plainly that it is a curated list of venture capital funds. Curation is why the counts move without a note and why no date sits beside them. There is no company side, so a question about seed rounds in London has no page here. For picking a lead investor by hand it is the fastest free thing on this list.