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State · North America

South Carolina

State · United States · Pop. 5.5M

A public taster of the full South 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.

$14.4B+14%
Combined startup EV
$142M
VC invested (last 12mo)
606
Tracked startups
#64/ 69
Unicorns per 1M people · regions rank
🦄 Unicorns
2
2 live · +0 new in 2025 (incl. 0 new decacorns)
💎 Decacorns
0
🐎 Thoroughbreds
4
Top 1% growth · $500M+

Enterprise value · 2015–2025

South Carolina grew 2.1× since 2015

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

0 $5B $10B $15B $20B South Carolina · $14.5B 2015 2018 2021 2024 2025

Adjacent regions by EV

Top sub-locations

Inside South Carolina: top 4 metros

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

By enterprise value
By 5-yr EV growth

Startup funnel

South 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
139
Seed
110
Series A
90
Series B
36
Series C
19
Unicorn
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 South Carolina

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

Unicorns $1B+ valuation 2
Red VenturesQuEST Global
Thoroughbreds+ $100M+ revenue 4
QuEST GlobalRed VenturesBenefitfocusOb Hospitalist Group

Academia

South Carolina's academic flywheel

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

University-linked startup formation
3
University spinouts
361
Total alumni-founded companies
229
Of which startups (<$15M raised)
99
Breakouts ($15M-100M)
33
Scaleups ($100M+)

Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems

How South Carolina stacks up

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

Combined enterprise value
$45.6B
$35.6B
$31.4B
$30.2B
$29.2B
$23.8B
$18B
$17.2B
South Carolina
$14.4B
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 South Carolina

Top overview

United States — top regions

Top regions in United States ranked by combined EV. South 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
40 South Carolina $14.4B 2.0× 2 $142M 606

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

Sector breakdown
Where South Carolina's unicorns concentrate
Fintech
AI / Enterprise SW
Health Tech
Biotech
Cybersecurity
Consumer
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Capital autonomy
South 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
South 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 South 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 South 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 South Carolina
New rounds last 30 days
Stage breakdown
Active investors
Round-size trends
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