Startup search methodology

Fast enough to explore. Capital evidence strict enough to cite.

The system borrows the clearest discovery and comparison patterns from private-market platforms, then removes opaque ranking, silent staleness, paywalled export, and mixed capital classes.

Open startup search Inspect the API Review sources

Platform benchmark

Keep the useful interaction. Remove the failure mode.

Public reviews repeatedly point to stale or incomplete profiles, high cost, complex filtering, opaque scores, and export limits. The design response is visible in the product contract below.

Patterns retained

Discovery and decision support

Search before dashboards

YC-style fast facets and a Harmonic-inspired cross-field thesis query lead directly to a compact, inspectable result list.

Evidence beside the result

PitchBook-style profile depth and Beauhurst-style research lenses are retained, but every capital fact keeps its own source and date.

Workflow without an account

Crunchbase-style watchlists and comparable-company workflows run locally on the reader's device; filtered CSV and JSON remain free.

Progressive disclosure

Dealroom-style taxonomy and CB Insights-style market context remain available without placing dozens of filters or charts in the first viewport.

Patterns rejected

Trust and usability failures

Opaque company scores

No heat, momentum, quality, exit-probability, or ecosystem score is presented as an observed fact.

Missing-as-zero

Undisclosed rounds, cumulative funding, valuations, grants, debt, and hiring signals never become numeric zeroes.

Commercial-feed copying

Dealroom, Crunchbase, PitchBook, CB Insights, Harmonic, Tracxn, Beauhurst, and people-data services are outbound research destinations until redisplay rights exist.

Attention as traction

Product Hunt votes, accelerator participation, patents, publications, hiring, and press coverage can trigger research but do not become investment or revenue evidence.

Reviewed product patterns include Product Hunt, Y Combinator, Dealroom.co, Crunchbase Pro, PitchBook, CB Insights, Harmonic, Tracxn, Beauhurst, SourceScrub, StartupBlink, F6S, Wellfound, OpenVC, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, Grata, Signal by NFX, and Visible. Their records are not reproduced.

Evidence ladder

Discovery can start anywhere. Capital publication cannot.

A candidate capital fact moves upward only after entity, transaction type, native amount and currency, announcement date, money basis, and source scope reconcile. Descriptive founder and technology fields remain company-profile context unless a linked source explicitly names the field.

Layer 1Company or statutory record

Company newsroom, issuer filing, official registry, or official grant or award record.

Layer 2Investor, accelerator, or exchange

A named investor, official program, regulator, or exchange announcement that identifies the entity and event.

Layer 3Source-reconciled reporting

Trusted current reporting with an attributable financing fact when primary evidence does not publish that field.

Layer 4Discovery only

Commercial databases, launch sites, hiring networks, patent search, social profiles, and news indexes that trigger verification.

Capital contract

One event type never impersonates another

The comparison surface is intentionally narrower than the research surface.

VLSI Market startup capital classification contract
Fact class	Required fields	Never relabeled as
Equity round	Stage or transaction label, announcement date, native amount, amount kind, source	Cumulative funding, valuation, debt, grant, revenue, or live company mark
Strategic investment	Investor relationship, announcement date, disclosed or undisclosed amount, source	Priced series round unless the source says so
Structure-undisclosed investment	Investor, announcement date, disclosed or undisclosed amount, and exact source wording	Equity, debt, or strategic equity without an explicit source classification
Debt facility	Native committed amount, optional upsize separately labeled, announcement date, source	Equity financing or cumulative venture funding
Grant or incentive	Awarding authority, program, amount, date, recipient and project scope	Equity, revenue, realized capex, or valuation
Cumulative funding	Explicit company-stated total or lower bound, as-of date, included scope	A sum assembled from incomplete rounds
Private valuation	Value, currency or USD disclosure, date, pre/post/unstated money basis, source	Current valuation, public-market capitalization, or analyst estimate

Refresh contract

Check often. Promote cautiously. Keep the last good snapshot.

Daily

Check official newsroom, filing, investor, and trusted-news metadata for changed events.

Event driven

Validate a new financing, acquisition, listing, shutdown, bankruptcy, leadership, or product signal before promotion.

Weekly

Audit active/private status, links, duplicate entities, founders, technology scope, and field conflicts.

On failureLast good

Preserve the previous sourced observation; missing, blocked, or changed upstream content never becomes zero.

Product Hunt ranking safeguards Crunchbase review themes PitchBook review themes Dealroom.co review themes