Boston
Metro area · United States · Pop. 4.9M · #9 city by EV
* C→Unicorn and Unicorn→Decacorn rates are derived from current counts (no founding-cohort data); the four mid-funnel rates use Dealroom's cohort tracking.
Largest rounds
Largest funding rounds in Boston
A live treemap of the largest VC rounds. Each cell is one round into Boston-headquartered companies, grouped by Dealroom sector.
Largest rounds in Boston - 2026
VC investment
How much venture capital flows into Boston
VC investment into Boston-headquartered, VC-backed companies, broken down by round size, company location, sector and funding stage.
Academia
Boston's academic flywheel
Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to Boston.
| # | University | City | Based here | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇺🇸MIT | Cambridge, MA | 120 | 9,472 |
| 2 | 🇺🇸Harvard University | Cambridge, MA | 38 | 9,055 |
| 3 | 🇺🇸University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA | 14 | 3,653 |
| 4 | 🇺🇸Princeton University | Princeton, NJ | 8 | 2,517 |
| 5 | 🇺🇸Carnegie Mellon University | Pittsburgh, PA | 6 | 2,845 |
| 6 | 🇺🇸Yale University | New Haven, CT | 6 | 3,314 |
Location comparison
How Boston stacks up
Compare Boston with peers from the same country (United States) — switch between combined EV, EV growth, and a growth × size view. Expand the table for the full ranking.
Combined enterprise value of each ecosystem.
Top cities in United States ranked by combined EV. Boston's row is highlighted (#5).
| # | Ecosystem | Combined EV | EV growth | Unicorns | VC invested | Tracked startups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bay Area | $20T | 8.0× | 866 | $156B | 24.5K |
| 2 | Seattle | $2.9T | 4.4× | 68 | $6.6B | 2,966 |
| 3 | Austin | $2T | 13.9× | 62 | $8.1B | 2,649 |
| 4 | New York City | $1.6T | 5.1× | 329 | $32.3B | 16.6K |
| 5 | Boston | $1.2T | 4.5× | 211 | $13.4B | 6,323 |
| 6 | Los Angeles | $1.2T | 5.7× | 158 | $16.3B | 8,592 |
| 7 | Miami | $673B | 12.8× | 40 | $2.6B | 2,865 |
| 8 | San Diego | $330B | 5.1× | 64 | $3.4B | 2,224 |
| 9 | Chicago | $266B | 3.7× | 52 | $2.2B | 2,833 |
| 10 | Washington DC | $265B | 3.3× | 55 | $3.5B | 2,343 |
| 11 | Dallas | $203B | 3.8× | 35 | $1.6B | 2,033 |
| 12 | Research Triangle | $140B | 2.8× | 23 | $2B | 1,040 |
Sector concentration
Where Boston punches above its weight
Sectors in which Boston's share of the global unicorn pool is bigger than its overall share. A 5× over-index means Boston is 5× more represented in that sector than in the global average. Source: top-hub aggregation across the 18 simplified sectors.
More data
Explore Dealroom data →Get the full Boston ecosystem on Dealroom
Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.