Search Startups
GET/startups

Search Startups

Search and filter the startup database by name, sector, country, tech stack, stealth status, founder-contact availability, and more. Returns paginated results with metadata. This is the API surface that powers stealth-startup deal-flow workflows for VC, M&A, and corp-dev buyers.

GEThttps://www.startuphub.ai/api/v1/startups

Request

# The "fresh stealth founder lead" query — every stealth startup on .ai
# or .io with at least one verified founder email, newest first.
curl "https://www.startuphub.ai/api/v1/startups?stealth=true&domain_tld=ai,io&has_known_emails=true&sort=founded_date.desc&limit=20" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_..."

Parameters

qstringoptional

Search query (matches name, description)

sectorstringoptional

Filter by sector (e.g. "AI", "Fintech")

countrystringoptional

Filter by HQ country

statusstringoptional

Operating status: Active, Acquired, Closed

employees_minintegeroptional

Min employee count

employees_maxintegeroptional

Max employee count

founded_afterstringoptional

Founded on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD)

founded_beforestringoptional

Founded on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)

sortstringoptional

Sort field.dir: founded_date.desc, total_funding.desc, total_score.desc, current_revenue.desc, employee_count.desc, employee_growth_quarterly_cagr.desc, latest_funding_date.desc, created_at.desc

stealthstringoptional

Stealth-mode filter. "true" = stealth only, "false" = exclude stealth. Stealth visibility requires Pro Lite tier or higher; Free tier never sees stealth rows.

website_statusstringoptional

Website liveness filter. Comma-separated: "active" (site up/connected), "dead" (offline), "parked" (domain repurposed/for-sale). e.g. website_status=active returns only companies with a live site. Indexed; fast.

has_websitestringoptional

"true" = only companies with a website URL on file, "false" = only those without. Independent of liveness (use website_status for up/down).

has_foundersstringoptional

"true" = only companies with at least one linked founder, "false" = only those without. Useful for filtering to profiles with resolvable founder records.

domain_tldstringoptional

Comma-separated TLD list. e.g. "ai,io,so" returns only startups whose primary website sits on those TLDs. Indexed; fast.

cdnstringoptional

Comma-separated detected CDNs: "cloudflare", "vercel", "cloudfront", "fastly", "netlify". Detected per startup from response headers at promote-time.

email_providerstringoptional

Comma-separated detected email providers from MX records: "google_workspace", "m365", "zoho", "proton", "rackspace", "fastmail", "yandex", "mimecast", "proofpoint", "barracuda", "self_hosted", "gateway". Powers vendor-segmentation queries.

has_known_emailsstringoptional

"true" returns only startups where at least one founder/team email has been verified (mass-discovered or claimed). Pro Lite tier and higher only. Pro Lite sees redacted emails (r***@company.com); Pro sees full addresses. This is the founders-with-emails moneymaker filter.

hostingstringoptional

Comma-separated detected hosting providers: aws, azure, gcp, vercel, render, railway, flyio, heroku, hetzner, ovh, vultr, linode, scaleway, digitalocean, netlify, github_pages. Detected via response headers (vendor-specific X-* tokens) + reverse-DNS on the resolved IP (catches Hetzner/OVH/Vultr/generic EC2 boxes).

paymentstringoptional

Comma-separated detected payment processors: stripe, paddle, lemonsqueezy, polar, paypal, square, adyen, braintree, klarna, afterpay, affirm, bolt, mollie, razorpay, chargebee, recurly, plaid, coinbase_commerce, apple_pay, google_pay.

compliancestringoptional

Comma-separated compliance certifications detected in footer text/badges: soc2, hipaa, iso27001, iso27017, pci_dss, gdpr, ccpa, fedramp. The enterprise-buyer filter — SOC 2 certification is the single biggest signal for sales-led B2B readiness.

status_pagestringoptional

Status page vendor (operational maturity proxy): statuspage, instatus, betterstack, freshstatus, statusgator.

cookie_consentstringoptional

EU/regulated-market compliance proxy via detected cookie consent vendor: onetrust, cookiebot, cookiehub, iubenda, termly, osano. Startups running OneTrust are typically selling into enterprise.

hiring_platformstringoptional

ATS / hiring vendor (proxy for stage + ATS sophistication): greenhouse, lever, ashby, workable, rippling_ats, recruitee, bamboohr.

bookingstringoptional

Booking widget (sales-led B2B signal): calendly, calcom, savvycal, chilipiper.

email_marketingstringoptional

Email marketing / capture tool: klaviyo, mailchimp, convertkit, beehiiv, loops, hubspot_forms, customer_io, substack.

ai_supportstringoptional

Customer-facing AI support widget (distinguishes "AI-using" from generic Intercom): intercom_fin, ada, sierra, decagon, drift_ai, fin_ai.

a11ystringoptional

Accessibility overlay widget (regulated-buyer signal): userway, accessibe, audioeye, equalweb.

affiliate_programstringoptional

Affiliate platform: partnerstack, rewardful, tolt, firstpromoter, impact, refersion, shareasale, cj_affiliate, rakuten_advertising, awin. Use affiliate_self_hosted to match startups that run their own affiliate page without a vendor.

has_affiliate_programstringoptional

"true" returns only startups with any affiliate program signal (vendor-detected OR self-hosted /affiliate page). Quick toggle for partnership-deal filtering.

limitintegeroptionaldefault: 20

Results per page (1-100)

offsetintegeroptionaldefault: 0

Pagination offset

Response

json
{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
      "name": "Anthropic",
      "slug": "anthropic",
      "one_liner": "AI safety company building reliable AI systems",
      "website": "https://anthropic.com",
      "hq_country": "United States",
      "hq_city": "San Francisco",
      "founded_date": "2021-01-01",
      "operating_status": "Active",
      "sectors": ["AI", "Machine Learning"],
      "total_score": 92.5,
      "stealth_mode": null,
      "domain_tld": "com",
      "domain_created_at": "2021-01-06",
      "has_known_emails": true,
      "tech_fingerprint": {
        "cdn": "cloudflare",
        "email_provider": "google_workspace",
        "email_provider_confidence": "high",
        "analytics": ["ga4"],
        "payments": [],
        "frameworks": ["nextjs"],
        "fingerprinted_at": "2026-05-21T09:14:00Z"
      },
      "logo_url": "https://cdn.startuphub.ai/..."
    }
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "total": 1,
    "limit": 5,
    "offset": 0
  },
  "credits": {
    "used": 1,
    "remaining": 49
  }
}

Errors

401Invalid or missing API key
403Filter requires higher tier (e.g. has_known_emails=true on Free)
429Daily rate limit exceeded
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