How to Find Startups
The working playbook for discovering AI startups by sector, stage, country, and funding, backed by a live directory of 19,100 startups, 12,842 investors, 21,398 funding rounds, and 7,776 sectors. For sales, investors, recruiters, and analysts.
How to find startups, in 3 steps
The same playbook used by sales teams, VCs, and recruiters shipping out of the directory today.
Define what "startup" means for you
Tighten the brief: stage (pre-seed → Series C+), sector (one of 7,776), geography (country + city), founding year, last-round date, headcount band, and tech stack. The more constraints you set, the cleaner the result. The directory supports every facet as a URL parameter.
Run the filter: or ask an agent
Hit /search with your filters, or drop the MCP server into Claude / Cursor and ask in natural language: "find me Series A computer-vision startups in EMEA founded 2023+." Both surfaces return the same 19,100-startup index, ranked by relevance, recency, or funding.
Verify, enrich, and act
Open profiles to verify domain, founding team, and funding history. Chain into our email finder API to get verified contact emails. Export to CSV, or pipe straight into your CRM, deal-flow tracker, or sourcing tool. Every step is API-native.
Six ways to find startups
Pick the method that matches your goal. Each one runs against the same 19,100-startup index.
Find AI startups by sector
The directory indexes 7,776 sectors: much more granular than "Software" or "AI." Filter for "agentic-RPA," "climate-MRV," "medical-imaging-radiology," or any of thousands of micro-verticals. URL is shareable and bookmarkable.
Find AI startups by country & city
City-level resolution across 120+ countries. Find AI startups in Paris, Berlin, Singapore, São Paulo, or Tel Aviv with one filter. Combine with sector or funding for tight, sourceable lists.
Find newly-funded startups
21,398 funding rounds tracked, with date, amount, and lead investor. Sort the directory by last-round-date to surface companies that just raised — Seed, Series A, Series B, growth — within the last 24-48 hours.
Find under-the-radar startups
Filter by founding year + sector + last-round-date is null. The under-the-radar slice: pre-PR, pre-Crunchbase, often pre-Seed. Where investors and recruiters source before a startup hits the press.
Find AI-native (not AI-branded) startups
Every startup carries an AI-readiness score that probes its site for MCP servers, llms.txt, agent-friendly schema, and structured product data. Filter for high readiness to find genuinely AI-native companies, not "AI" tagline companies.
Find trending startups by momentum
Ranked by web-traffic delta, hiring-page acceleration, and round velocity. The 30-day momentum view: what to watch this month, not what was hot last year.
Find AI startups by category
The most-searched slices of the directory. Each link is a live, filterable view of the index.
Who finds startups here
The four workflows that drive most discovery traffic on StartupHub.ai today.
Sales prospecting
Sales teams use the directory to find AI startups by stage + sector + geography, then chain into the email finder API to get verified contact emails. End-to-end: filter → list → verified inboxes, in one workflow.
Investor research
Investors find startups by combining founding year + sector + last-round-date. Surfaces under-the-radar Seed and Series A candidates that haven't hit Crunchbase yet: where deal flow lives before it gets crowded.
Recruiting & sourcing
Recruiters find AI-native employers by stage + tech stack + hiring-signal. Pivot from "Series B Computer Vision in Berlin actively hiring" to a candidate pipeline in two clicks. No LinkedIn premium required.
Market mapping
Analysts find startups by sector slice and render a categorized landscape. Feed the directory into the free Market Map Maker for a publication-ready PNG, or export raw to Notion / Airtable / your model.
Where to find startups, and where not to
The five places people try first, and what each gets wrong for AI-startup discovery.
| Source | Where it falls short | StartupHub.ai discovery |
|---|---|---|
| Crunchbase | $99/mo Pro to see past page 1; sector taxonomy collapses AI into a few buckets | Free to browse, 7,776 sectors, programmable API on every paid tier |
| AngelList / Wellfound | Recruiting-first; faceted search behind a login wall; weak funding-round data | Discovery-first, 21,398 rounds with date + amount + lead, no signup to browse |
| Product Hunt | Launch-day lens: you only find startups on the day they launch | Continuous discovery: founding year, funding, hiring, traffic, not just launch posts |
| F6S | Accelerator-application focus; stale listings; weak filtering UI | Live, daily-refreshed data; deep filters across sector, geo, stage, and AI-readiness |
| Google search | Returns blog listicles, outdated round-ups, and SEO spam, not structured data | Typed schema (sector, stage, funding, location): deterministic, exportable, programmable |
Find startups by asking Claude or Cursor
The directory is exposed as a Model Context Protocol server. Drop one URL into your AI client and your agent gains startup-discovery superpowers: natural-language filters, instant export, no manual facet-clicking.
- “Find me 20 newly-funded AI agent startups from the last 30 days.”
- “Find Series A computer-vision startups in healthcare, EMEA only.”
- “Discover stealth AI startups founded in 2025 with no announced round.”
- “Find AI infra startups hiring senior engineers in Berlin.”
Pre-built discovery feeds
The three queries we run for ourselves every morning, exposed as live pages.
Newly added AI companies, sorted by founding year. Where deal flow shows up before the press cycle.
Ranked by traffic delta, hiring acceleration, and round velocity. The 30-day momentum view.
Pre-seed through Series F+, last 30 days. Date, amount, lead investor, all linked.
Start finding startups now
19,100 AI startups, 7,776 sectors, 21,398 funding rounds. Free to browse. Free API.
Frequently asked questions
Related
The full index: 19,100 AI startups, 7,776 sectors, 21,398 rounds. Browse, filter, export.
REST endpoints for programmatic startup discovery. Filter, search, list-by-sector, get-by-id.
Discover startups by asking your agent. One URL, 19,100 startups inline.
Newly added companies, sorted by founding year. Pre-PR deal flow.
Ranked by traffic, hiring, and funding velocity. The 30-day momentum view.
Pre-seed through Series F+, last 30 days. Date, amount, and lead investor.
Side-by-side: pricing, sector depth, API access, AI-readiness scoring.
Self-serve AI-startup discovery without the $20k/yr enterprise contract.
Funding-round and investor coverage without the enterprise sales process.
