California
State · United States · Pop. 39.4M · #3 region by EV
Enterprise value · 2015–2025
California grew 13.0× since 2015
Combined enterprise value of every tracked startup headquartered in California that's still operating today — public and private companies combined, totalled by founding-year cohort.
Adjacent regions by EV
Top sub-locations
Inside California: top 8 metros
Metros inside California ranked by combined enterprise value, paired with their 5-year growth multiplier.
Startup funnel
California'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.
* 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.
Notable companies
Top private companies in California
Up to 20 names per tier from Dealroom's tracked dataset. Decacorns are valued $10B+, unicorns $1B+, thoroughbreds have crossed $100M in revenue.
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.
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Notable alumni-founded: GoogleNvidiaOpenAIStripe
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Notable alumni-founded: Apple (founders)TeslaDatabricksGitLab
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Notable alumni-founded: Riot GamesGoodRx
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Notable alumni-founded: Tinder
Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems
How California stacks up
Peers chosen from the same country (United States), sized closest to California by combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.
Top overview
United States — top regions
Top regions in United States ranked by combined EV. California's row is highlighted.
| # | Ecosystem | Combined EV | 5-yr EV growth | Unicorns | VC invested | Tracked startups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | $21.7T | 7.7× | 976 | $180B | 36.4K |
| 2 | Western United States (Pacific, excl. Bay Area) | $4.8T | 8.1× | 279 | $29.9B | 16.3K |
| 3 | Northeastern United States | $3.5T | 4.9× | 571 | $52.8B | 30.2K |
| 4 | Washington (State) | $3.1T | 10.6× | 72 | $7.3B | 3,203 |
| 5 | Texas | $2.3T | 10.0× | 107 | $11.2B | 6,215 |
| 6 | New York State | $1.5T | 5.4× | 270 | $29.9B | 15.3K |
| 7 | Southeastern United States | $1.3T | 5.3× | 145 | $11.4B | 13.6K |
| 8 | Massachusetts | $1.2T | 4.5× | 184 | $13.5B | 5,968 |
| 9 | Florida | $729B | 9.7× | 49 | $3.9B | 4,511 |
| 10 | Midwestern United States | $654B | 3.6× | 104 | $9.2B | 10.8K |
| 11 | Western United States (Mountain) | $346B | 4.0× | 86 | $9.1B | 5,151 |
| 12 | Illinois | $264B | 3.4× | 51 | $2.2B | 3,354 |
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.
Get the full California ecosystem on Dealroom
Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.