Pre-seed companies are in the earliest stages of development, often pre-product or pre-revenue. These startups typically raise under $1M to validate their concept and build their initial team.
Explore 9,419 recently funded pre-seed companies with lead investors, funding amounts, and founding team data.
| Industry | Companies | Total Funding |
|---|---|---|
| Artificial Intelligence (AI) | 17 | $8.5M |
| Agentic AI | 3 | $1.5M |
| AI Infrastructure | 3 | $1.5M |
| Content | 1 | $500K |
| Developer Tools | 1 | $500K |
| City | Companies | Total Funding |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 21 | $10.5M |
| Toronto | 1 | $500K |
| Los Angeles | 1 | $500K |
| Washington | 1 | $500K |
| Boston | 1 | $500K |
Riften is an AI infrastructure platform that reduces model costs and builds private, company-specific AI intelligence.
Familiar Labs is an AI-powered translation lab that makes high-quality video dubbing with voice and lip-sync across 30 languages.
Agent FM is AI desktop application that helps users to complete the described tasks across files, browser, and inbox.
TryNearby connects local businesses with nearby creators to automate authentic user generated content, reviews, and local discovery.
hardware intelligence builds agent-native toolchains and automated design workflows to streamline semiconductor chip development.
hardware intelligence builds agent-native toolchains and automated design workflows to streamline semiconductor chip development.
Amorphic Labs develops AI agents that create personalized product demo videos for sales and customer success teams.
Vestris provides AI agents that automate real estate title and closing workflows from contract intake to closing readiness.
Dawn Industries is an AI platform that builds VIM, an intelligent system for diagnosing and fixing faults in industrial automation cells.
Lamb Labs is building model processing units that hardcode AI models into silicon for faster, more efficient inference.
Waddle Labs builds LLM agents and generalist software infrastructure designed for real-time robotics control and learning.
Lamb Labs is building model processing units that hardcode AI models into silicon for faster, more efficient inference.
Prodigy Research trains foundation models and autonomous AI agents for quantitative trading across global financial markets.
OneTriangle optimizes LLM inference speed and cost by transferring the KV cache from smaller prefill models to larger decode models.
OneTriangle optimizes LLM inference speed and cost by transferring the KV cache from smaller prefill models to larger decode models.
CoArena provides a live evaluation platform and public leaderboard where AI computer-use agents race side-by-side on real-world tasks.
Markov is a data engineering company that builds expert computer-use datasets for frontier AI labs.
Markov is a data engineering company that builds expert computer-use datasets for frontier AI labs.
Locke is an applied AI company building AI agents that help companies and governments work together.
Rindler develops a Model Context Protocol (MCP) platform enabling AI agents to interact reliably with websites that lack APIs.
Impact Drones offers autonomous counter-drone systems providing air defense for critical infrastructure.
Impact Drones offers autonomous counter-drone systems providing air defense for critical infrastructure.
Proprio Robotics develops autonomous robots designed to handle server maintenance and hardware operations inside data centers.
Proprio Robotics develops autonomous robots designed to handle server maintenance and hardware operations inside data centers.
Akon Labs develops GitNexus, a code intelligence engine for software engineering agents.
Pre-seed funding is the earliest formal stage of startup financing. At this point, founders are typically working on validating an idea, building a prototype, or conducting initial customer discovery. Many pre-seed rounds come from personal savings, friends and family, angel investors, or early-stage accelerators. The company is usually pre-revenue and may not yet have a fully built product.
$50K - $2M
The actual amount varies based on market conditions, company traction, and investor appetite.
Pre-seed capital is generally used to build a minimum viable product (MVP), conduct customer interviews, hire the first one or two team members, and cover operating expenses while the founders validate their assumptions about the market.
Friends and family, angel investors, micro-VCs, and startup accelerators like Y Combinator, Techstars, and 500 Global are the most common pre-seed investors. Some institutional seed funds also participate in pre-seed rounds when they see exceptional founding teams.
At the pre-seed stage, investors focus less on traction metrics and more on the founding team, market opportunity, and the clarity of the problem being solved. A compelling pitch, evidence of domain expertise, and early user interest or waitlist signups can be enough to secure funding.
Based on 9,419 pre-seed companies tracked in the VCBacked database, here is a snapshot of current funding activity at this stage.
Finding companies that have recently raised pre-seed funding is valuable for sales teams, investors, recruiters, and service providers. Pre-Seed startups are actively spending their newly raised capital on tools, talent, and services, making them ideal prospects. VCBacked tracks 9,419 pre-seed companies with verified founder contact information, updated regularly as new rounds are announced.
You can narrow your search by filtering companies by industry vertical, city or region, or by exploring specific combinations such as Pre-Seed artificial intelligence (ai) companies. Each company profile includes funding details, founder names, and contact information to help you reach out directly.
For a broader view of the startup funding landscape, explore all funding stages or browse companies by our full company directory. Whether you are looking for early-stage startups to invest in or growth-stage companies to sell to, VCBacked provides the data you need to identify and connect with the right companies.
Perfect for: B2B sales teams targeting pre-seed companies, investors exploring opportunities, and service providers looking for companies that just raised capital and are ready to scale.
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