Kentucky
State · United States · Pop. 4.6M
* 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 Kentucky
A live treemap of the largest VC rounds. Each cell is one round into Kentucky-headquartered companies, grouped by Dealroom sector.
Largest rounds in Kentucky - 2026
VC investment
How much venture capital flows into Kentucky
VC investment into Kentucky-headquartered, VC-backed companies, broken down by round size, company location, sector and funding stage.
Academia
Kentucky's academic flywheel
Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to Kentucky.
Location comparison
How Kentucky stacks up
Compare Kentucky 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. Kentucky's row is highlighted (#12).
| # | Ecosystem | Combined EV | EV growth | Unicorns | VC invested | Tracked startups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | $21.6T | 7.7× | 1,090 | $178B | 37.1K |
| 2 | Western United States (Pacific, excl. Bay Area) | $4.6T | 4.8× | 316 | $28.2B | 16.4K |
| 3 | Northeastern United States | $3.4T | 4.6× | 649 | $54.3B | 30.6K |
| 4 | Washington (State) | $3T | 4.5× | 72 | $7.3B | 3,235 |
| 5 | Texas | $2.7T | 10.6× | 125 | $11.3B | 6,281 |
| 6 | New York State | $1.5T | 5.1× | 296 | $31B | 15.5K |
| 7 | Southeastern United States | $1.3T | 4.9× | 172 | $11.2B | 13.7K |
| 8 | Massachusetts | $1.2T | 4.4× | 209 | $13.3B | 6,007 |
| 9 | Florida | $783B | 9.9× | 61 | $3.7B | 4,556 |
| 10 | Midwestern United States | $667B | 3.6× | 112 | $9.4B | 10.9K |
| 11 | Western United States (Mountain) | $355B | 4.1× | 99 | $9.9B | 5,194 |
| 36 | Kentucky | $15.5B | 1.6× | 7 | $184.8M | 575 |
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 Kentucky dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.
More data
Explore Dealroom data →Get the full Kentucky ecosystem on Dealroom
Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.