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Metro area · North America

San Diego

Metro area · United States · Pop. 3.2M · #17 city by EV

A public taster of the full San Diego ecosystem on Dealroom — request a demo for live deal flow, founder pedigrees, AI-talent maps, and the full cap table for every company below.

🦄 New unicorns by year
4
Annual $1B+ outcomes, unsmoothed
🐎 Cumulative thoroughbreds
27
Company revenue history, 2016-2025
Enterprise value
$340B
Actual EV series, 2015-2025

Largest rounds

Largest funding rounds in San Diego

A live treemap of $100M+ rounds from the Dealroom API. Each cell is one round into San Diego-headquartered companies, grouped by Dealroom sector.

Largest rounds in San Diego - 2026

Every $100M+ VC round into San Diego-headquartered companies in 2026, grouped by Dealroom sector.
- rounds · - raised
Live from Dealroom API Open full VC dashboard

Startup funnel

San Diego's power-law funnel

From the first cheque written to a $10B+ outcome. Each arrow shows what fraction of companies at one stage graduate to the next, tracked by founding cohort.

Pre-Seed
382
Seed
352
Series A
388
Series B
253
Series C
187
Unicorn
48
Decacorn
4

* 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.

VC investment

How much venture capital flows into San Diego

VC investment into San Diego-headquartered, VC-backed companies, broken down by round size, company location, sector and funding stage. Live from the Dealroom Next Gen API.

Notable companies

Top private companies in San Diego

Up to 20 names per tier from Dealroom's tracked dataset. Decacorns are valued $10B+, unicorns $1B+, thoroughbreds have crossed $100M in revenue.

Decacorns $10B+ valuation 4
DexcomIlluminaShield AIBiosplice Therapeutics
Unicorns $1B+ valuation 48
Mirati TherapeuticsAmbrxUnconventional AIErascaVividion TherapeuticsPrometheus BiosciencesBelite BioLivsmedGenMark DiagnosticsNetraDyneAuspex PharmaceuticalsTuSimpleAnaptysBioVentyx BiosciencesAragon PharmaceuticalsClickUpNerio TherapeuticsSantarusVuoriRayzeBio+28 more
Thoroughbreds+ $100M+ revenue 27
Arkeia SoftwareDexcomIlluminaACADIA PharmaceuticalsTandem Diabetes CareVuoriMedia DoMirum PharmaceuticalsMaxLinearSeismicClickUpShield AIAnaptysBioMaravai Life SciencesInseegoCueDrataARS PharmaceuticalsArcturus TherapeuticsGossamer Bio

Academia

San Diego's academic flywheel

Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to San Diego.

University-linked startup formation
56
University spinouts
1,050
Total alumni-founded companies
598
Of which startups (<$15M raised)
312
Breakouts ($15M-100M)
140
Scaleups ($100M+)

Location comparison

How San Diego stacks up

Compare San Diego with peers from the same country (United States) — switch between combined EV, 5-year EV growth, and a growth × size view. Expand the table for the full ranking.

$1.2T
$1.2T
$619B
San Diego
$399B
$256B
$195B
$143B

Combined enterprise value of each ecosystem.

Premium analytics

What we don't show on this page (yet)

Sector breakdowns, founder origins, AI-talent leaderboards and live deal flow are gated to logged-in Dealroom users. Book a demo to access the full San Diego dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.

Sector breakdown
Where San Diego's unicorns concentrate
Fintech
AI / Enterprise SW
Health Tech
Biotech
Cybersecurity
Consumer
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Capital autonomy
San Diego's domestic vs foreign capital mix
% domestic VC by stage
Cross-border lead investors
Sovereign-fund participation
Foreign-LP exposure
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Recent momentum
San Diego's VC investment trajectory by stage
2024 vs 2025 by stage
Round-size trends
Stage-conversion deltas
Quarterly velocity
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Founder origins
Where San Diego's startup founders come from
By country of origin
Per capita
Top universities
Top alumni-factory companies
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AI talent
Top employers of AI talent in San Diego
Core AI roles
Frontier AI roles
YoY hiring growth
Senior + lead engineers
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Deal flow
Live deal flow & funding rounds in San Diego
New rounds last 30 days
Stage breakdown
Active investors
Round-size trends
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Get the full San Diego ecosystem on Dealroom

Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.