Product Hunt used to be indie hackers. Now it is dominated by funded startups
Published 27 September 2026
We took Product Hunt's daily leaderboard for two days in each of 2016, 2020 and 2025 and looked up who made each of the top ten products, and whether that company, or the company behind it, has raised money.
On the four days in 2016 and 2020, 3 of the 12 products that finished in the top three came from a funded company. On the two days in 2025, all 6 did.
What the top three looked like
In 2016 and 2020 the top three was mostly one or two people with a side project: a logo search tool, a list of app marketing resources, Launchaco, Manual (a camera app by two indie developers), a bootstrapped image API (Bannerbear), a podcast for founders who do not raise money, a design agency's ebook and a small PPE startup. Sprint, a book by partners at Google Ventures, we left as unclear. The funded exceptions were Hardbound ($300K seed), MSCHF's All The Streams and Neo ($125K from Techstars).
In 2025 the top three on 11 March was Fluently (Y Combinator, $2M seed), Skarbe ($600K pre-seed) and IKI.AI (backed by Golden Egg Check). On 9 September it was CREAO ($25M across three rounds), YouMind (seed+) and Empromptu ($2M pre-seed).
Positions four to ten
The top ten tells the same story with one wrinkle. In 2016 big companies launched on Product Hunt all the time: Google, YouTube, Airbnb, Foursquare, GIPHY and Intercom all made the top ten on our two days. That puts 2016 at 11 of 20 funded. In 2020 it was 6 of 20. In 2025 it was 16 of 20, and they were not big companies but seed and Series A startups: Qodo, Mantle, Eraser, Reworkd, Speakeasy, Ona (Gitpod), GoSearch (GoLinks).
How we counted
We read the leaderboard at producthunt.com/leaderboard/daily for each day and took positions 1 to 10 in Product Hunt's order, skipping ads. For each product we found the maker, including the parent company when the product sits on its own domain (GoSearch is made by GoLinks; Gram is made by Speakeasy), and searched for a funding round. Funded means venture, angel or accelerator money raised by September 2026; two companies (RocketReach and Empromptu) raised after their launch day. Big tech counts as funded. Four products we could not place are marked unclear and counted as not funded.
Six days is a small sample. The table below lists every product with its source, and the same rows are in hand_checked_top10.csv.
Every product we checked
2016-03-08
| # | Product | Maker | Funded | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Instant Logo Search | KOGG | no | Small web tool |
| 2 | Sprint | Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz (GV partners) | unclear | A book by partners at Google Ventures |
| 3 | App Marketing Stack | Leslie Leung and team | no | Curated resource list |
| 4 | RocketReach | RocketReach | yes | Bootstrapped at launch; later raised from Brighton Park Capital |
| 5 | Ignite for iPhone | Yummygum (design agency) | no | Agency side product |
| 6 | Destinations on Google | yes | ||
| 7 | Presshour | Mona Soundankar, Jit Salunke | no | Two-founder side project, sold lifetime access for $99 |
| 8 | Digit for iPhone | Digit | yes | $36M raised by September 2016 (GV, General Catalyst, Ribbit) |
| 9 | Nova Inbox | Nova | yes | Y Combinator W16 |
| 10 | The AlphaFlow Exchange | AlphaFlow | yes | $4.1M seed (Resolute, Point72, YC) |
2016-09-13
| # | Product | Maker | Funded | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manual 2.0 | William Wilkinson, Deepak Mantena | no | Two indie iOS developers |
| 2 | Hardbound | Hardbound | yes | $300K seed (Betaworks, Maveron, Full Tilt) |
| 3 | Launchaco | Launchaco | no | Side project, later taken over by Namecheap |
| 4 | Foursquare 10 | Foursquare | yes | VC-backed |
| 5 | Airbnb iMessage App | Airbnb | yes | About $4B raised by 2016 |
| 6 | Logo Pizza | Solo logo designer | no | 50 logos for sale to start a design career |
| 7 | Walkie | Founders (Copenhagen startup studio) | unclear | Studio product, no round of its own |
| 8 | YouTube Community | YouTube (Google) | yes | |
| 9 | GIPHY for iMessage | GIPHY | yes | VC-backed, later bought by Meta |
| 10 | Intercom on Onboarding | Intercom | yes | VC-backed |
2020-03-10
| # | Product | Maker | Funded | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | All The Streams | MSCHF | yes | Venture-backed studio |
| 2 | Bannerbear API | Jon Yongfook | no | Bootstrapped solo founder |
| 3 | Startups for the Rest of Us | Rob Walling | no | Podcast for non-venture startups |
| 4 | Remote Rocket Ships | Freedom Is Everything (blog) | no | Blog list of remote startups |
| 5 | ScreenCloud | ScreenCloud | yes | Point Nine, 500 Global |
| 6 | DoNotPay | DoNotPay | yes | a16z, Lux, Coatue |
| 7 | OpenStanding | Artiom Dashinsky and family | no | Family-made wooden laptop stands |
| 8 | MonoLisa | FaceType foundry and two developers | no | Paid font |
| 9 | Ditto | Ditto | yes | Y Combinator W20, $1.5M seed |
| 10 | Cotter | Cotter | yes | Y Combinator W20 |
2020-09-08
| # | Product | Maker | Funded | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Neo | AskNeo | yes | Techstars, $125K |
| 2 | Business-Driven Digital Product Design | Fireart Studio (design agency) | no | Agency ebook |
| 3 | Recoveralls Gear | Recoveralls | no | Small PPE startup, no round found |
| 4 | NoCode Club | Hello Tyro founders | no | Side project, since shut down |
| 5 | Squat Captcha | vivirenremoto | no | Solo developer joke project |
| 6 | Narakeet | Gojko Adzic | no | Bootstrapped |
| 7 | Iconhub | OWW Studio | no | Small design studio |
| 8 | Meet Your Heroes | Independent organiser | no | $30 ticketed founder calls |
| 9 | Mental Mirror | Independent maker | no | Indie app |
| 10 | Focused Work | Michael Tigas | no | Indie iOS developer |
2025-03-11
| # | Product | Maker | Funded | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fluently | Fluently | yes | Y Combinator W24, $2M seed |
| 2 | Skarbe | Skarbe | yes | $600K pre-seed (FIRSTPICK) |
| 3 | IKI.AI 2.0 | IKI.AI | yes | Golden Egg Check investment |
| 4 | Qodo Gen | Qodo | yes | $50M raised by 2024 |
| 5 | Embra | Embra | yes | 1121.vc, Outset Capital |
| 6 | Eraser AI | Eraser | yes | $4M seed (Caffeinated Capital) |
| 7 | Mantle | Mantle | yes | $10.5M seed (Eniac, Craft) |
| 8 | Reworkd | Reworkd | yes | Y Combinator S23, $2.75M seed |
| 9 | LinktoDM | LinktoDM | unclear | No maker or funding found |
| 10 | Selene 1 | Atla | yes | Y Combinator company |
2025-09-09
| # | Product | Maker | Funded | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CREAO | CREAO AI | yes | $25M across three rounds |
| 2 | YouMind | YouMind | yes | Seed+ round, September 2025 |
| 3 | Empromptu | Empromptu | yes | $2M pre-seed (Precursor), announced after launch |
| 4 | Ona (formerly Gitpod) | Gitpod | yes | $25M Series A |
| 5 | Gram by Speakeasy | Speakeasy | yes | $15M Series A (FPV, GV) |
| 6 | GoSearch Free | GoLinks | yes | $27M (Mayfield, Ludlow) |
| 7 | SAMMY Guides | SAMMY | unclear | No funding found |
| 8 | Behold Cam-1 | Behold | no | Kickstarter, $171K from backers |
| 9 | Agilepitch | AgilePitch | yes | $25K (LAUNCH Fund, New Frontiers) |
| 10 | Piñata Birthday Reminder | Jose Bento | no | Solo developer |