What is the Power Law Investor Ranking?

The Power Law Investor Ranking is Dealroom's annual, fully data-driven league table of early-stage investors. The 2026 edition is the 8th annual. Investors are ranked by a scoring formula that rewards tangible outcomes — primarily Seed investments that reached $100M+ in revenue ('Thoroughbreds'), $25–100M revenue ('Colts'), unicorn status, and $1B+ exits. Earlier-stage entries earn more points.

How is the score calculated?

Investor Score = 100 points per Seed → Unicorn or $100M+ revenue, 30 points per Series A → Unicorn or $100M+ revenue, 10 points per Series B+ → Unicorn or $100M+ revenue, 25 points per Seed → Colt ($25–100M revenue), and 7.5 points per Series A → Colt. Two-thirds of all points come from revenue milestones; one-third from valuation-based outcomes.

Who tops the 2026 ranking?

Y Combinator tops the 2026 'Seed to $100M revenue' ranking with 97 Thoroughbreds, followed by SV Angel (69), 500 Global (37), Sequoia (34), and Plug and Play (26). The full top 100 is published on this page.

How are ties handled?

Ties use standard competition ranking: tied investors share the same rank, and the next rank is skipped. For example, if three investors tie at rank 7, the next investor is rank 10.

Dealroom tracks approximately 25,000 investors globally, including VCs, accelerators, CVCs, angel networks, and crossover funds. Any investor with at least one qualifying 'Outcome' in the selected ecosystem is included.

8th Annual Edition

Power Law Investor Ranking 2026

Name: Power Law Investor Ranking 2026
Creator: Dealroom.co
Published: 2026
License: https://dealroom.co/terms

Venture returns follow a power law, only the top investors truly bend the curve. Our eighth annual Power Law Investor Ranking shows who they are, built on Dealroom's proprietary data and a scoring model that rewards outcomes, not hype.

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100% Transparent, 100% Quantitative

Power Law Investor Ranking

Investors earn points for each portfolio company that reaches a major milestone. Earlier stages and bigger outcomes are worth more.

Seed → Unicorn 100 pts
Series A → Unicorn 30 pts
Series B+ → Unicorn 10 pts
Seed → $100M+ revenue 100 pts
Series A → $100M+ revenue 30 pts
Series B+ → $100M+ revenue 10 pts
🏇 Seed → $25-100M revenue 25 pts
🐎 Series A → $25-100M revenue 7.5 pts

Showing investors of type , ranked by .

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Seed → $100M+ revenue outcomes per investor

Power Law outcomes are rare. Especially from Seed stage.

Just ~1.5% of VC-backed startups ever reach $100M+ in revenue, so backing even one is rare. Of the 19,739 investors in our dataset, 17,505 (88.7%) have never done it; another 8.5% have done it exactly once.

Just 28 investors — the top 0.14% — have produced 11 or more such winners. That handful drives a disproportionate share of venture returns, which is why our scoring model weights outcomes, not brand or AUM.

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Winner takes most

How steep is venture capital?

Venture capital is a power law. So are F1, tennis, and book sales. The question is how steep the drop-off is from #1 to #100 in each, ranking-only, no denominators required.

Take the top 100 of each ranking. Plot what each person captured. The shape of the curve tells you how concentrated the field is among the people who actually count. Toggle fields on and off below — hover the curves for the names.

Top 100 in each field, relative to the #1

#1 = 100%. Each subsequent rank shows what they captured as a share of the leader.

Compare:

The steeper the curve falls, the more dominant the #1. The slower it falls, the deeper the elite tier.

Population sizes for context. The drop-off measure above depends only on the top 100 ranking, not on the size of the field.

Field details

Field	Top 100 ranked by	Total winners	Total field
Seed investors	$100M+ revenue companies seeded	2,956$100M+ revenue companies	~19,739seed investors (VCs, accelerators, angels)
F1	Career Grand Prix wins	1,155Grand Prix wins	~770drivers ever
Tennis	Singles Grand Slam titles (men + women)	~960Grand Slam titles awarded	~270unique winners (men + women)
Books	Lifetime book sales (M copies, est.)	~170Mbooks ever published	millionsauthors with at least one
Box-office	Cumulative worldwide gross ($M)	~$300Bglobal box-office, modern era	~10,000+credited feature directors
Science	Lifetime Google Scholar citations	~60Mpapers indexed	millionsauthors with at least one paper
Music	Certified record sales (M units)	~hundreds of Malbums + singles released	millionsrecording artists

The investor universe

How many VCs are there?

What does the active VC base actually look like — by deal volume, type, first round, fund size, and assets under management. Toggle any chart to compare active VCs against the full investor universe.

~19,600venture investors with disclosed startup deals since 1990

~9,500active venture investors in the current Dealroom dataset

~4,900active dedicated VC firms, excluding angels, CVCs, accelerators and crossover funds

The simple answer depends on how strict the definition is. If “VC” means dedicated venture capital firm, Dealroom tracks roughly 8,600 firms with venture activity since 1990, of which about 4,900 are active. If it means the broader venture-capital ecosystem — VC firms, corporate venture arms, angels, micro-VCs, accelerators and crossover investors — the universe is closer to 19,600 investors, with about 9,500 still active.

Investment Activity Since 1990

Distribution of investors by total deals done since 1990

Investor Type & Typical First Round

Distribution of investors by category and the round they typically enter at

Investor Type

Typical First Round

Size of Last Fund & Assets Under Management

Distribution of investors by latest fund size and total AuM

Size of Last Fund

Assets Under Management

Methodology

How we built the Power Law Investor Ranking

Scoring formula

Investor Score =
   100 pts x Seed → Unicorn/$100M+ rev
   30 pts x Series A → Unicorn/$100M+ rev
   10 pts x Series B+ → Unicorn/$100M+ rev
   25 pts x Seed → Colt
   7.5 pts x Series A → Colt

Two-thirds of all points come from revenue milestones (Thoroughbreds + Colts). Valuation-based outcomes (Unicorns + $1B exits) make up the remaining third.

What counts as an Outcome?

🦄 Unicorn - private valuation over $1B
💸 $1B+ exit - via M&A or IPO
🏇 Thoroughbred - $100M+ annual revenue
🐎 Colt - $25-100M annual revenue

Counting the right cheque

For each outcome company, we tag the earliest round where each investor participated (Seed, A, B, etc.). Earlier entries earn more credit. Late-stage entries get less. This "stage weighting" has been used since Edition 3, so scores are comparable year to year.

Why mix revenue and valuation?

Unicorn status signals market promise; revenue proves product-market fit. If a company hits both, it earns on both, because it shows both potential and proof.

Who's in the sample?

We track ~25,000 investors globally: VCs, accelerators, CVCs, angel networks, and crossover funds. The table only includes those with at least one "Outcome" in the selected ecosystem.

Data sources & refresh rate

Dealroom's public and proprietary data, company filings, press releases, and investor submissions. Tables update nightly. Scores are frozen annually for each official edition.

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