# Seed-stage startups founded 2015 to 2017: outcomes and website check

Source: FundingWatcher's copy of Crunchbase organisation records, and a website check
run on 23 September 2026. License: CC BY 4.0. Credit: FundingWatcher, September 2026.

The cohort counts (cohorts_by_founding_years.csv, cohort_2015_2017_stage_by_outcome.csv)
use every matching company. The website check (site_check_sample.csv) is a random
sample of 1,500 out of 17,904 companies; site_check_summary.csv scales its shares to
the 17,904.

## Files

**cohorts_by_founding_years.csv** - one row per founding cohort: `companies`,
`raised_series_a_or_later`, `share_series_a_or_later` (percent), `acquired`, `closed`.

**cohort_2015_2017_stage_by_outcome.csv** - last stage (rows) by Crunchbase outcome
(Acquired, Closed, No exit on file) for the 30,826 companies.

**site_check_sample.csv** - one row per checked company: `name` (blank where the startup file has none), `domain`, `description`, `founded`,
`last_round`, `last_round_date`, `state`, `new_owner_kind` (only when state is
"Someone else's site now"), `footer_year` (highest copyright year on the page),
`page_title`.

**site_check_summary.csv** - `state`, `companies` in the sample, `share` (percent of
1,500), `estimate_of_17904` (share applied to the 17,904 with a domain, rounded to 10).

See METHOD.md for definitions.