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State · North America

North Carolina

State · United States · Pop. 11M · #29 region by EV

A public taster of the full North Carolina ecosystem on Dealroom — request a demo for live deal flow, founder pedigrees, AI-talent maps, and the full cap table for every company below.

$177B+24%
Combined startup EV
$2.6B
VC invested (last 12mo)
1,827
Tracked startups
#24/ 69
Unicorns per 1M people · regions rank
🦄 Unicorns
29
29 live · +4 new in 2025 (incl. 0 new decacorns)
💎 Decacorns
2
$10B+ tier
🐎 Thoroughbreds
20
Top 1% growth · $500M+

Enterprise value · 2015–2025

North Carolina grew 4.5× since 2015

Combined enterprise value of every tracked startup headquartered in North Carolina that's still operating today — public and private companies combined, totalled by founding-year cohort.

0 $50B $100B $150B $200B North Carolina · $176B 2015 2018 2021 2024 2025

Adjacent regions by EV

Top sub-locations

Inside North Carolina: top 3 metros

Metros inside North Carolina ranked by combined enterprise value, paired with their 5-year growth multiplier.

By enterprise value
2 Charlotte $25.5B
3 Asheville $980M
By 5-yr EV growth
1 Charlotte 3.2×
3 Asheville 2.4×

Startup funnel

North Carolina'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.

Pre-Seed
418
Seed
359
Series A
307
Series B
168
Series C
90
Unicorn
27
Decacorn
2

* 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 North Carolina

Up to 20 names per tier from Dealroom's tracked dataset. Decacorns are valued $10B+, unicorns $1B+, thoroughbreds have crossed $100M in revenue.

Decacorns $10B+ valuation 2
Epic GamesRed Hat
Unicorns $1B+ valuation 27
Brii BiosciencesAreteia TherapeuticsTresataPaymentusVantacaExtreme NetworksTeamworksScience 37Cardioxyl PharmaceuticalsArysta Life ScienceAvalaraKriya TherapeuticsVeloxis PharmaceuticalsPalmettoSAGE TherapeuticsBrightlynCinoAskBioHumacyteAvidXchange+6 more
Thoroughbreds+ $100M+ revenue 17
Red HatPaymentusExtreme NetworksLendingTreeBioventusnCinoCardinal Infrastructure GroupPendoTeamworksPrecision BioSciencesEpic GamesInsight softwareAvidXchangeSAGE TherapeuticsAvalaraAerie PharmaceuticalsChannelAdvisorIntelerad Medical SystemsBrightlyUUNET

Academia

North Carolina's academic flywheel

Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to North Carolina.

University-linked startup formation
188
University spinouts
1,536
Total alumni-founded companies
885
Of which startups (<$15M raised)
457
Breakouts ($15M-100M)
194
Scaleups ($100M+)

Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems

How North Carolina stacks up

Peers chosen from the same country (United States), sized closest to North Carolina by combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.

Combined enterprise value
$264B
$263B
$215B
$188B
North Carolina
$177B
$170B
$153B
$137B
EV growth (5-yr ×) vs current EV
peer median 4.4× 1.6× 16.1× 30.6× $5.2B $337B $21.7T EV growth (5yr ×) Combined enterprise value (log) California Western United States (Pacific, excl. Bay Area) Northeastern United States Washington (State) Texas New York State Southeastern United States Massachusetts Florida Midwestern United States Western United States (Mountain) Illinois Pennsylvania New Jersey Colorado North Carolina

Top overview

United States — top regions

Top regions in United States ranked by combined EV. North Carolina'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
16 North Carolina $177B 3.0× 29 $2.6B 1,827

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 North Carolina dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.

Sector breakdown
Where North Carolina's unicorns concentrate
Fintech
AI / Enterprise SW
Health Tech
Biotech
Cybersecurity
Consumer
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Capital autonomy
North Carolina's domestic vs foreign capital mix
% domestic VC by stage
Cross-border lead investors
Sovereign-fund participation
Foreign-LP exposure
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Recent momentum
North Carolina's VC investment trajectory by stage
2024 vs 2025 by stage
Round-size trends
Stage-conversion deltas
Quarterly velocity
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Founder origins
Where North Carolina's startup founders come from
By country of origin
Per capita
Top universities
Top alumni-factory companies
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AI talent
Top employers of AI talent in North Carolina
Core AI roles
Frontier AI roles
YoY hiring growth
Senior + lead engineers
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Deal flow
Live deal flow & funding rounds in North Carolina
New rounds last 30 days
Stage breakdown
Active investors
Round-size trends
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