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 9,222 recently funded pre-seed companies with lead investors, funding amounts, and founding team data.
| Industry | Companies | Total Funding |
|---|---|---|
| Artificial Intelligence (AI) | 16 | $8.8M |
| Content | 1 | Undisclosed |
| Analytics | 1 | $500K |
| Aerospace | 1 | Undisclosed |
| Credit Cards | 1 | Undisclosed |
| Health Care | 1 | $1.5M |
| Financial Services | 1 | Undisclosed |
| Lead Generation | 1 | $500K |
| AI Infrastructure | 1 | Undisclosed |
| City | Companies | Total Funding |
|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 16 | $4.5M |
| New York | 2 | Undisclosed |
| Berlin | 1 | $1.2M |
| Sunnyvale | 1 | Undisclosed |
| Las Rozas De Madrid | 1 | $4.6M |
| Austin | 1 | Undisclosed |
| Milan | 1 | $1.5M |
| Newark | 1 | $500K |
| Paris | 1 | $500K |
Wato is an enterprise AI workspace providing an orchestration layer for shared agent memory, reusable workflows, and collaborative tools.
WhyBrilliant is an AI-guided recruitment platform matching tech candidates with companies.
YouArt develops AI tools for generating images and videos through workflow-based creative agents and multimodel automation.
Zenbu is an extensible IDE and workspace for developers to run, manage, and review code from parallel AI coding agents.
Zolvo offers software that automates lending operations, reconciles invoices, monitors portfolios, and generates financial reporting data.
Optiak is an AI-based platform that develops a modular operating system designed to streamline operations.
9 Mothers is a defense tech company that offers an AI-powered C-sUAS point defense turret designed to engage multiple fast-moving drones.
Auxos is an AI-powered customer intelligence platform that provides simulated customer audiences for product, marketing, and research teams.
Cignara is an agentic AI company that provides AI voice, chat, and copilot agents for enterprise customer support and sales operations.
Incandor develops behavioral intelligence software and APIs for fraud detection on digital financial platforms.
Incandor develops behavioral intelligence software and APIs for fraud detection on digital financial platforms.
Arctic Health is a credentialing platform that provides AI-enabled credentialing and payer enrollment services for healthcare organizations.
General Aviation develops satellite-connected ATC and airport surface management systems for aircraft, drones, and ground vehicles.
HEVN provides business banking, global payments, payroll, virtual accounts, and payment APIs for international companies.
BioStack is a digital platform that provides healthcare AI training environments and curated multimodal clinical datasets.
Walter builds AI-native employees for manufacturing back offices, automating data entry, ERP workflows, and document processing securely.
Uno Wallet develops a mobile wallet that connects multiple credit cards and routes payments according to user-defined card rules.
Niino is an Italian healthtech startup that operates a digital logistics marketplace.
Hexa is an AI operations platform that helps manufacturers and distributors automate quoting, procurement, and back office workflows.
Archer offers digital financial services, enabling secure payments, transfers, and account management services.
Gojiberry AI is an AI Agent that finds high intent leads for B2B companies.
HeyClicky develops a Mac desktop AI assistant that guides workflows and automates on-screen and background tasks.
InLoop Robotics develops bimanual robotic systems and RaaS solutions for manufacturing, assembly, and logistics workflows.
Pentagon develops software for coordinating AI agents, enabling communication, task management, and shared memory.
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 9,222 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 9,222 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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