Who's writing cheques: the firms backing the most startups, to 13 Oct

Who backed the most companies

Ranked by how many separate companies each firm was named as backing between 7 August 2026 and 13 October 2026. Firms on the same count share a place, listed alphabetically within it.

• 1. Balderton Capital — 4 companies, most recently 9 October 2026. Sectors: AI, Other B2B Software, Consumer Services. Backed: Sava Technologies (Series B, €32.1m round, reported); Spott (Series A, €18.3m round, reported); Unit1 Studio (stage not reported, £20m round, reported); Lovable (Series C, $400m round, reported).
• 1. Sequoia — 4 companies, most recently 7 October 2026. Sectors: Robotics, Other B2B Software, Cybersecurity. Backed: Mecka AI (stage not reported, $60m round, reported); RobCo (Growth); Rillet (stage not reported, $100m round, reported); Corma (stage not reported, $60m round, reported).
• 1. Y Combinator — 4 companies, most recently 12 October 2026. Sectors: Other B2B Software, Aviation, Biotech & Life Sciences. Backed: HyLight (stage not reported, €13m round, reported); Spott (Series A, €18.3m round, reported); Zeit AI (stage not reported, €4.3m round, reported); Adaptyv Bio (Series A, €34.4m round, reported).
• 4. IDG Capital — 3 companies, most recently 8 October 2026. Sectors: Robotics, AI. Backed: Butterfly Effect (stage not reported, $500m round, reported); PHYMI (Seed, $100m round, reported); XPeng Robotics (Series A, $900m round, reported).
• 4. Nvidia — 3 companies, most recently 25 September 2026. Sectors: AI, Biotech & Life Sciences, Semiconductors. Backed: Nscale (Growth, $3.4bn round, reported); Basecamp Research (Series C, $140m round, reported); Groq (stage not reported).
• 4. Scaleup Europe Fund — 3 companies, most recently 15 September 2026. Sectors: AI, Health Tech & Medtech, Semiconductors. Backed: EUCLYD (Series A, €200m round, reported); Tandem Health (Series B, $100m round, reported); Mistral AI (Series D+, €3bn round, reported).
• 4. Tencent — 3 companies, most recently 8 October 2026. Sectors: AI, Robotics. Backed: Butterfly Effect (stage not reported, $500m round, reported); XPeng Robotics (Series A, $900m round, reported); Lovable (Series C, $400m round, reported).

A further 32 firms cleared the two-company floor. The live board lists every one, with each company and the announcement it came from.

Where their cheques went

Between them, the 39 listed firms backed 69 separate companies. By sector, counting each company once however many of these firms backed it:

• Other B2B Software — 12 companies
• Fintech — 11 companies
• AI — 10 companies
• Cybersecurity — 4 companies
• Food — 4 companies
• Health Tech & Medtech — 4 companies
• 11 other sectors — 24 companies

By stage, as each announcement labelled it:

• Stage not reported — 25 companies
• Pre-seed — 14 companies
• Seed — 10 companies
• Series A — 9 companies
• Series B — 5 companies
• Series C — 3 companies
• Growth — 2 companies
• Series D+ — 1 company

New to the list in the last 14 days

These firms reached two companies between 30 September 2026 and 13 October 2026, dated by the announcement of the company that took them there:

• Headline — Scarlet, announced 12 October 2026
• Notion Capital — Scarlet, announced 12 October 2026
• Fireside — KISAH, announced 9 October 2026
• Flanders Future Tech Fund — SpectaCell, announced 9 October 2026
• 100IN — Verso, announced 8 October 2026
• High-Tech Gründerfonds — TODAY, announced 8 October 2026
• HV Capital — Hadrian, announced 6 October 2026
• Motive Partners — Hadrian, announced 6 October 2026
• SmartFin — Hadrian, announced 6 October 2026
• Alstin Capital — Pandektes, announced 5 October 2026
• Better Angle — Fleuret AI, announced 5 October 2026
• EIFO — Rodinia Generation, announced 5 October 2026
• 42CAP — Deepslate, announced 1 October 2026
• BACKED — Foundational, announced 1 October 2026
• Nordic Makers — Good Tape, announced 1 October 2026
• NPIF II - PXN Equity Finance — Revnu, announced 1 October 2026
• Plural — Metaview, announced 1 October 2026
• Seedcamp — Metaview, announced 1 October 2026

How to use this if you are raising

• Read a fund's last ninety days, not its website. A thesis page says what a fund would like to back. The companies it was named in this quarter say what it does back, and at what stage.
• Match the stage before the sector. A firm whose recent cheques are all Series B rarely leads a pre-seed round, however close the sector fit.
• Look at who else was in the round. The other names in the same announcement are firms that fund already invests alongside, which is often the shortest route to an introduction.
• Read absence carefully. A firm missing from this list may simply not announce through the outlets we read. Silence here is not evidence that a fund has stopped investing.

What this counts, and what it does not

• Reported, not verified. Every name comes from a public funding announcement we collected, linked below. It is a record of what was reported, not a register of who invested.
• Companies, never money. When four firms are named in one round, the public record does not say who put in what. So there is no money column, and no firm's share of anything.
• Firms only, two companies minimum. Named individuals are left out, and a firm is listed on its second company. 360 more firms were named once in this window: counted, not listed.
• Our coverage, not the market. 190 of the 458 companies in the window named at least one backer, and only those can count. The window opens 15 July 2026, but our record starts 7 August 2026, so that is the span this covers. Rumoured rounds are left out entirely.
• Spellings. We merge a firm's names only where they differ by a legal suffix, so a firm reported under two different names can appear twice.
• Frozen on publication. This is the board as it stood on 14 October 2026. The live board moves with every collection run.