California
State · United States · Pop. 39.4M · #3 region 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 California
A live treemap of the largest VC rounds. Each cell is one round into California-headquartered companies, grouped by Dealroom sector.
Largest rounds in California - 2026
VC investment
How much venture capital flows into California
VC investment into California-headquartered, VC-backed companies, broken down by round size, company location, sector and funding stage.
Academia
California's academic flywheel
Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to California.
| # | University | City | Unicorns | Companies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 🇺🇸Stanford University | Stanford, CA | 478 | 13K |
| 2 | 🇺🇸UC Berkeley | Berkeley, CA | 190 | 8,909 |
| 3 | 🇺🇸UCLA | Los Angeles, CA | 60 | 4,599 |
| 4 | 🇺🇸USC | Los Angeles, CA | 48 | 3,752 |
Location comparison
How California stacks up
Compare California 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 regions in United States ranked by combined EV. California's row is highlighted (#1).
| # | Ecosystem | Combined EV | EV growth | Unicorns | VC invested | Tracked startups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | $21.6T | 7.7× | 1,097 | $178B | 37.2K |
| 2 | Western United States (Pacific, excl. Bay Area) | $4.6T | 4.8× | 318 | $28.2B | 16.4K |
| 3 | Northeastern United States | $3.4T | 4.6× | 651 | $54.3B | 30.6K |
| 4 | Washington (State) | $3T | 4.5× | 72 | $7.3B | 3,241 |
| 5 | Texas | $2.7T | 10.6× | 125 | $11.3B | 6,295 |
| 6 | New York State | $1.5T | 5.1× | 297 | $31.1B | 15.5K |
| 7 | Southeastern United States | $1.3T | 4.9× | 172 | $11.2B | 13.7K |
| 8 | Massachusetts | $1.2T | 4.4× | 209 | $13.3B | 6,026 |
| 9 | Florida | $779B | 9.8× | 61 | $3.7B | 4,563 |
| 10 | Midwestern United States | $665B | 3.6× | 112 | $9.4B | 10.9K |
| 11 | Western United States (Mountain) | $359B | 4.1× | 99 | $9.9B | 5,198 |
| 12 | Illinois | $276B | 3.6× | 53 | $2.3B | 3,364 |
Sector concentration
Where California punches above its weight
Sectors in which California's share of the global unicorn pool is bigger than its overall share. A 5× over-index means California is 5× more represented in that sector than in the global average. Source: top-hub aggregation across the 18 simplified sectors.
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 California dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.
More data
Explore Dealroom data →Get the full California ecosystem on Dealroom
Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.