VC Investor Ranking

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The sixth annual update of the Dealroom Investor Ranking. A data-driven ranking of the most prominent venture capital investors in the world, this is a practical tool for all startup ecosystem decision makers, including founders, investors, LPs, regulators and policy-makers.

Global Rankings

The Global Ranking is what it sounds like. A ranking of venture capital investors, based anywhere, investing in companies anywhere, and at any stage.

The ranking looks at how successful investors are at picking startup that go one to big outcomes – primarily looking at unicorns and future unicorns (companies valued $250M-$1B). Investments are weighted by the stage at which firms invest in the most successful companies, with the aim of creating insights from a level playing field, e.g. most points for backing a unicorn at Seed, then Series A and so on.

The “Typical round stage” is based numerically on the most common first round at which and investor backs startups. However, it’s worth noting that almost all investors do invest at multiple stages of growth, and all their rounds are taken into account in the ranking. E.g. first placed Sequoia Capital have invested more rounds at Series A than any other stage, but they have also backed 33 of their 319 unicorns from Seed stage.

Click on any investor’s name to see all the underlying data on Dealroom.

Global Combined

A consolidated ranking of all global venture funds, at all stages.

Global Seed

A view of the world's most prominent VC investors whose most common first round is at Seed stage.

Global Series A

The world's most prominent VC investors whose most common first round is at Series A stage.

EMEA Rankings

This ranking aims to surface the most prominent VC investors operating in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This ranking is based on where the startup investment targets are based, rather than where the investor in based. This is why Insight Partners or Sequoia Capital still rank within the top 10 VCs in the EMEA ranking.

EMEA Combined

EMEA Seed

The most prominent VC investors backing EMEA startups, whose most common first round is at Seed stage.

EMEA Series A

The most prominent VC investors backing EMEA startups, whose most common first round is at Series A stage.

Rank by number of unicorns

Country Rankings

United Kingdom

Based on UK investments only, made by funds based in the UK.

DACH

Based on global investments, of investors headquartered in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

France

Based on global investments of funds headquartered in France.

Spain

Based on global investments of funds headquartered in Spain.

Israel

Israel has always been a globally focussed, and globally attractive startup ecosystem. This Israel ranking shows the funds, based anywhere, that have backed the most Israel HQ'd and Israel-founded unicorns. Additional shout out to Lightspeed Venture Partners, a US-based fund that has had a formative interest and influence on Israeli venture in addition to their 131 global unicorns, and are just off the list.

Nordics

Based on global investments of funds headquartered in the Nordics.

Central and Eastern Europe

Based on global investments of funds headquartered in Central and Eastern Europe.

Italy

Based on global investments of funds headquartered in Italy.

The Methodology

Dealroom’s data-driven methodology considers how successful investors are at picking winners and supporting them to become future unicorns and unicorns. 

The scoring works as follows:

• Investments in Unicorns 

• At seed stage: 100 points
• At series A stage: 30 points
• At series B+ stage: 10 points

• Investments in Future Unicorns

• At seed stage: 10 points
• At series A stage: 3 points
• At series B+ stage: 1 points

• Activity score

• Each investment in the last 12 months: 1 point

If investors are tied there, we look at a third factor: level of activity. In order to achieve that, the points from factor 1 and 2 are all multiplied by 10,000.

What we mean by “unicorn” and “future unicorn”:

Unicorns and $1B+ exits: Companies founded since 1990 that have reached US$1B valuation. This also includes companies that exited at over $1B and have since dropped below the $1B mark after going public. More on edge cases and methodology here.

Future unicorn: Fast-growing companies with valuations between USD$250M – 1B. We include only companies that have raised investment since 2018.