Capital Sources

About the data

A sovereign wealth fund is an investment fund owned by a national or state government; most invest in venture through funds rather than directly, which makes them LPs to court more than investors to pitch.

Angel groups, venture debt lenders, and revenue-based financing providers. Compiled by hand from what each organization publishes about itself; every listing links the page its description comes from. Check sizes are shown only where the organization states them. Last checked October 11, 2026.

Corporate venture arms. Venture arms of operating companies, such as technology, pharmaceutical, automotive, energy and financial companies, that invest in outside startups, often ones whose products fit the parent's business. Compiled by hand on 2026-10-11 from each organization's own website; no directory or ranking was copied. source_url is the page on the organization's site that was fetched that day and that the summary rests on. The summary is our own sentence. Facts repeat what the site says: the parent company, the stages it invests at, and a check size only where the site gives one. City, state and country are given only where the site states a single home; where it lists several offices they are in the facts instead. figure_usd is a fund size, committed capital or assets-under-management figure the organization states in US dollars on its site, with figure_label saying which; figures stated in other currencies are left in the facts unconverted, and amounts invested to date are facts, not figures. Nothing is estimated. Left out: arms whose pages could not be fetched, answered with a block page, or showed no sign of an update since 2024. As of October 11, 2026. Source: Websites of the corporate venture arms listed.

Sovereign wealth funds. Compiled by hand from what each fund publishes about itself; every listing links the page its description comes from. Assets are as the fund states them, in its own currency and in US dollars, with the date and the source on its page. Last checked October 11, 2026.

Venture studios. Venture studios and company builders: organizations that start new companies themselves or together with founders, supplying ideas, a team, services and early funding. Compiled by hand on 2026-10-11 from each organization's own website; no directory or ranking was copied. Listed are organizations that describe themselves on their site as a venture or startup studio, venture builder, company builder, venture creator, incubator that creates its own companies, or as building or founding companies alongside investing. source_url is the page on the organization's site that was fetched that day and that the summary rests on. The summary is our own sentence. Facts repeat what the site says about sectors, what it provides, and the funding it commits per company, where it says so. City, state and country are given only where the site states them. figure_usd is a fund size, capital backing or assets-under-management figure the organization shows in US dollars on its site, with figure_label saying which; figures in other currencies are left in the facts unconverted. Nothing is estimated. Left out: studios that work only for corporate clients, sites that could not be fetched, and sites with no sign of an update since 2024. As of October 11, 2026. Source: Websites of the venture studios listed.

Placement agents. Firms that venture capital funds named on Form D as paid to sell their offerings (the form’s sales compensation item), in every filing through 2026-09-30. Firms only: a recipient counts as the broker-dealer it is associated with, by that firm’s CRD number, or under its own name when it has a CRD number and the name is a business’s; individuals are never listed. A fund is an offering by a pooled investment fund that calls itself a venture capital fund; funds registered under the Investment Company Act, single-deal vehicles, feeders, and series are left out, and parallel vehicles of one fund count once. Listed firms were named by at least 2 venture funds on filings since 2015. Funds served counts every venture fund that named the firm since 2008; recent means on a filing since 2021-09-30. The median is of what those funds reported raising. States are the ones the firm solicited in for the most funds, when a filing named states and not all of them. Being named here means a fund reported paying the firm; it is not a recommendation, and a firm may sell far more than venture funds. As of September 30, 2026. Source: SEC Form D data sets.

University venture funds. Venture funds run by or for a university: seed funds, technology-transfer funds and investor networks tied to the university, which back companies from its research, students, staff or alumni. Compiled by hand on 2026-10-11 from each fund's own website or its page on the university's site; no directory or ranking was copied. Listed are funds, investment companies and investor networks run by a university or its foundation, owned or anchored by one or more universities, or operating under a stated agreement or affiliation with one. source_url is the page that was fetched that day and that the summary rests on. The summary is our own sentence. Facts repeat what the site says: the university, who is eligible, and the check size where stated. City, state and country are given only where the site states them (country also where the site is the university's own or the company's national registration is plain from it). figure_usd is a fund size or assets figure stated in US dollars on the site, with figure_label saying which; amounts in other currencies, including Canadian and Australian dollars, are left in the facts unconverted. Nothing is estimated. Left out: funds whose pages could not be fetched, answered with a block page, or showed no update since 2024. As of October 11, 2026. Source: Websites of the university funds listed.

Wealth platforms. Platforms and wealth managers that bring wealthy individuals and their advisers into private funds through feeder funds. Each files its feeders with the SEC, which shows how much it has raised and whose funds it carries. Derived from fund names in the SEC’s Form D data sets (every filing through 2026-09-30); nobody publishes this list, and a platform is here only because of how its feeders are named. A feeder is a pooled investment fund, not registered under the Investment Company Act, whose name on Form D matches its platform’s pattern, without regard to capitals: iCapital: contains the word “iCapital”; CAIS: begins “CAIS”; Moonfare: begins “Moonfare” (its feeders are numbered, not named for a manager); Titanbay: contains “Titanbay”; Allocate: begins “Allocate” (and isn’t a series of another company) or contains “Allocate Access”; IEQ Capital: begins “IEQ Capital Access Fund”; Brown Advisory: begins “Brown Advisory Investors <year> -” or “Brown Advisory Feeder Fund -” (its own funds of funds are not counted); BlueArc: ends “a series of BlueArc Core Alternatives, LLC”; Long Angle: begins “Long Angle Investments LLC -” (its names abbreviate the funds, so no managers are read); PPB Capital Partners: begins “PPB” (but not “PPB Advisors”, an older fund); AlphaKeys (UBS): begins “AlphaKeys”; PE Premier and HedgePremier (Morgan Stanley): begins “PE Premier”, “RE Premier” or “HedgePremier”. Feeders whose names don’t carry the platform’s name (most banks’ private-bank vehicles) can’t be recognised this way and are missing. An issuer under one name counts once. Counted are feeders whose first filing is dated 2019-01-01 or later; a platform is listed with at least 10 (looked for and below that: Titanbay (6)). The figure adds up the largest “total amount sold” each of those feeders reported on any filing; many feeders file before selling anything or never amend, so it understates what was raised, and it includes hedge fund and credit feeders. Venture and private equity feeders are those that called themselves a venture capital or private equity fund on the form. The country is the one most of a platform’s feeders gave as their address; where the platform itself is based is not in the filings, so no city or state is given. Years active are the first and latest year in which one of the counted feeders first filed. Managers are read from the feeder names as written there, by removing the platform’s words and cutting at the first word that only says which fund it is (“Partners”, “Fund”, “Growth”, a number); up to 6 carried by the most feeders are shown, none carried by fewer than 2 (a fund’s taxable and tax-exempt feeders count separately), and a name that starts with five capitals or fewer counts only if it is a firm known by its initials. Some of these are fund families, not firms (“Vintage”, “Lexington Capital”). “Most often sold by” is the firm that at least half the feeders named in the form’s sales compensation item. UBS and Morgan Stanley are named from that item, not from the fund names; PPB’s feeders say only “PPB”, and the firm’s full name is from its own website, where it describes its feeder funds. Websites are the platforms’ own, opened and checked on 2026-10-11; the filings don’t give them. Being listed is not a recommendation. As of September 30, 2026. Source: SEC Form D data sets.

Corporate pension plans. Defined-benefit pension plans of US companies, hospitals, universities and other private employers that report holding partnership interests directly. They invest in private funds as limited partners, usually through an investment office or an outside adviser. From the Department of Labor’s Form 5500 data sets (the “Latest” files for form year 2024: each filer’s latest filing, as received through 2026-09-24), joined on the filing’s ACK_ID: Form 5500 for the name, the kind of filer, the sponsor and its city and state; Schedule H for assets. Listed are defined-benefit plans (line 8a has a 1x characteristic code) whose plan year began in 2024, with at least $25 million on Schedule H line 1c(5), “Partnership/joint venture interests”, at the end of the plan year; total assets is line 1f; participants are line 6f, the total at the end of the plan year, or line 5, at its beginning, when 6f is empty. That line is what the filer itself holds in partnerships and joint ventures whose underlying assets are not plan assets under 29 CFR 2510.3-101, at the value it reports. It is not only private equity or venture capital: hedge funds, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, energy and timber partnerships and limited liability companies are in it too, and the form does not break it down. It leaves out partnerships that file as 103-12 investment entities (line 1c(12)), anything held through a master trust, a common or collective trust or a pooled separate account (lines 1c(9) to 1c(11), so a plan invested through its sponsor’s master trust shows little or nothing on its own line 1c(5)), and private funds a filer put on line 1c(15), “Other”. Unfunded commitments are not reported. Derived here: the choice of form year (the latest whose Schedule H file is at least 90% the size of the year before’s), the mixed-case spelling of names, the link to each filing on the Department’s public disclosure site (built from the ACK_ID), and the rounded figures in the facts. Organizations only: administrators’, signers’ and preparers’ names are not read, and a filer whose name reads as a person’s is left out. This file: single-employer plans and multiple-employer plans (several unrelated employers, not collectively bargained), which Form 5500 line A tells apart; “Plan type” says which. The employers include nonprofits (hospitals, universities) as well as companies; government and most church plans do not file Form 5500. The sponsor is shown when its name reads as an organization. One plan whose name reads as a person’s is listed all the same, after review: the name is its sponsor’s brand. Plans that invest through a master trust are found in the pension master trusts file instead. As of September 24, 2026. Source: US Department of Labor, Form 5500 data sets (2024 Form 5500 and Schedule H).

SBICs. Small Business Investment Companies in the US Small Business Administration’s SBIC directory, as the SBA publishes it: each licensee’s name, city and state, the firm that manages it, its vintage year, fund size, average investment, investment strategy, fund style, and whether it is making new investments. The SBA does not date the directory; the date here is the day it was downloaded. The directory’s investor relations contacts are people and are not imported. As of October 11, 2026. Source: SBA SBIC directory.

Union pension plans. Multiemployer (Taft-Hartley) defined-benefit pension plans, run jointly by a union and the employers of its members, that report holding partnership interests directly. They invest in private funds as limited partners, usually on the advice of an investment consultant. From the Department of Labor’s Form 5500 data sets (the “Latest” files for form year 2024: each filer’s latest filing, as received through 2026-09-24), joined on the filing’s ACK_ID: Form 5500 for the name, the kind of filer, the sponsor and its city and state; Schedule H for assets. Listed are defined-benefit plans (line 8a has a 1x characteristic code) whose plan year began in 2024, with at least $25 million on Schedule H line 1c(5), “Partnership/joint venture interests”, at the end of the plan year; total assets is line 1f; participants are line 6f, the total at the end of the plan year, or line 5, at its beginning, when 6f is empty. That line is what the filer itself holds in partnerships and joint ventures whose underlying assets are not plan assets under 29 CFR 2510.3-101, at the value it reports. It is not only private equity or venture capital: hedge funds, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, energy and timber partnerships and limited liability companies are in it too, and the form does not break it down. It leaves out partnerships that file as 103-12 investment entities (line 1c(12)), anything held through a master trust, a common or collective trust or a pooled separate account (lines 1c(9) to 1c(11), so a plan invested through its sponsor’s master trust shows little or nothing on its own line 1c(5)), and private funds a filer put on line 1c(15), “Other”. Unfunded commitments are not reported. Derived here: the choice of form year (the latest whose Schedule H file is at least 90% the size of the year before’s), the mixed-case spelling of names, the link to each filing on the Department’s public disclosure site (built from the ACK_ID), and the rounded figures in the facts. Organizations only: administrators’, signers’ and preparers’ names are not read, and a filer whose name reads as a person’s is left out. This file: multiemployer plans (Form 5500 line A), which are collectively bargained plans that several employers contribute to and a joint board of trustees runs. One plan is listed under a shortened name, after review: its official name opens with the names of two people, which are left off. As of September 24, 2026. Source: US Department of Labor, Form 5500 data sets (2024 Form 5500 and Schedule H).

Pension master trusts. A master trust pools the assets of one employer’s pension plans under a single trustee: the plans own shares of the trust, and the trust holds the investments, private funds among them. Most large corporate plans invest this way, so their partnership interests are reported here; plans that hold partnerships directly are listed separately as corporate and union pension plans. From the Department of Labor’s Form 5500 data sets (the “Latest” files for form year 2024: each filer’s latest filing, as received through 2026-09-24), joined on the filing’s ACK_ID: Form 5500 for the name, the kind of filer, the sponsor and its city and state; Schedule H for assets. Listed are direct filing entities of two kinds (Form 5500 line A and the entity code beside it), for a fiscal year that ended in 2024 or later, with at least $25 million on Schedule H line 1c(5), “Partnership/joint venture interests”, at the end of that year; total assets is line 1f. They have no participants of their own. That line is what the filer itself holds in partnerships and joint ventures whose underlying assets are not plan assets under 29 CFR 2510.3-101, at the value it reports. It is not only private equity or venture capital: hedge funds, private credit, real estate, infrastructure, energy and timber partnerships and limited liability companies are in it too, and the form does not break it down. It leaves out partnerships that file as 103-12 investment entities (line 1c(12)), anything held through a master trust, a common or collective trust or a pooled separate account (lines 1c(9) to 1c(11), so a plan invested through its sponsor’s master trust shows little or nothing on its own line 1c(5)), and private funds a filer put on line 1c(15), “Other”. Unfunded commitments are not reported. Derived here: the choice of form year (the latest whose Schedule H file is at least 90% the size of the year before’s), the mixed-case spelling of names, the link to each filing on the Department’s public disclosure site (built from the ACK_ID), and the rounded figures in the facts. Organizations only: administrators’, signers’ and preparers’ names are not read, and a filer whose name reads as a person’s is left out. This file: master trust investment accounts (code M: a trust, or one investment account of a trust, in which the plans of one employer or of employers under common control invest; a sponsor whose trust has several accounts has several entries) and 103-12 investment entities (code E: a pooled vehicle, often a group trust or a fund of funds, whose assets count as its investors’ plan assets and which files for itself); “Entity type” says which. Common and collective trusts and pooled separate accounts, which banks and insurers run for unrelated plans, are not listed. The plans that invest through an entity here report their share of it as an interest in a master trust or in a 103-12 entity (Schedule H lines 1c(11) and 1c(12)), not on their own line 1c(5): the corporate and union pension plan files list the plans that hold partnerships directly, so nothing is counted in both. Which plans invest in which trust is on the trust’s Schedule D, not read here. The sponsor is shown when the filing names one that reads as an organization and is not the entity itself. As of September 24, 2026. Source: US Department of Labor, Form 5500 data sets (2024 Form 5500 and Schedule H).

Crowdfunding portals. Crowdfunding intermediaries registered with the SEC as funding portals that are funding portal members of FINRA, from FINRA’s list: each portal’s name, the other names it uses, and its website (the first one, when it lists several). Crowdfunding platforms run by registered broker-dealers are not on this list. FINRA does not date the list; the date here is the day it was read. As of October 11, 2026. Source: FINRA: Funding Portals We Regulate.

Community development lenders. Loan funds, banks and venture funds certified by the US Treasury’s CDFI Fund as community development financial institutions. They lend to and invest in small businesses that conventional lenders pass over, mostly in low-income communities. From the CDFI Fund’s List of Certified Community Development Financial Institutions as of 2026-09-17, a workbook linked from its certification page: 1,281 certified CDFIs (160 Bank Holding Company, 184 Bank or Thrift, 367 Credit Union, 561 Loan Fund, 7 Venture Capital, 2 Venture Capital Fund). The list gives each one’s name, type, city, state and website, and whether it is a Native CDFI; it does not say what a CDFI lends for. Listed here are the 754 of type Loan Fund, Bank or Thrift, or Venture Capital Fund (which the list also writes “Venture Capital”). Credit unions and bank holding companies are left out: credit unions lend mostly to consumers, and a holding company’s bank is certified in its own right. No amounts are published in the list, so none are given. City names in capitals are put in title case, and a website written without http is given https. As of September 17, 2026. Source: CDFI Fund: List of Certified CDFIs.

SBA lenders. Banks and other lenders that make SBA 7(a) loans, the federal government’s main guaranteed loan for small businesses. These are the 500 most active by dollars approved in the latest fiscal year. From the SBA’s 7(a) Lender Activity Report as of 2026-09-30 (sheet “Lender”), which gives each lender’s name, city and state with the number and gross dollar amount of the 7(a) loans the SBA approved for it in fiscal year 2026 (October 1 to September 30). The report lists 1,256 lenders with 56,130 loans and $32.43 billion; listed here are the 500 with the most dollars approved, which account for $31.58 billion (97% of the total). The amount is the approved loan, not the SBA’s guaranteed share. Average loan is dollars divided by loans, and the rank is by dollars among all lenders in the report; both are derived. Two lenders can share a name: the report tells them apart by city and state. City names in capitals are put in title case. The report gives no websites. As of September 30, 2026. Source: SBA 7(a) Lender Activity Report.

Federal R&D grant programs. The federal SBIR and STTR programs, through which eleven agencies fund research and development at small companies without taking equity. One entry per agency program, with what it awarded in the latest fully reported fiscal year. One entry per agency program: each agency on sbir.gov’s Participating Federal Agencies page, once for SBIR and once for STTR when it runs both. Awards and dollars are counted from sbir.gov’s award file (award_data_no_abstract.csv, linked from https://www.sbir.gov/data-resources, dated 2026-10-07) by its Agency, Program, Award Year (“the fiscal year of the award”) and Award Amount columns; Phase II counts awards whose phase begins “Phase II”, including Direct to Phase II. Fiscal year 2024 is the latest in which every listed agency has awards in the file (6,412 awards, $4.91 billion in all): when read, fiscal year 2025 had 5,219 awards and none from Department of Agriculture; fiscal year 2026 had 303 awards and none from Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Transportation, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration; agencies report to sbir.gov after a year ends, so later years are still filling in. The Phase I and Phase II amounts, the funding type and the agency’s program page (the link the page labels “Agency Website”; Commerce has one for NIST and one for NOAA) are as the agencies page gives them, per agency and not per program. The page heads the Department of Defense’s card “Department of War (DOW)”; the award file calls it the Department of Defense, as here. No company, award title or person in the award file is read. As of October 7, 2026. Source: SBIR.gov award data and participating agencies.

Organizations only: no individuals are listed. A listing is a public record, not a recommendation.

Data feed: the directory as CSV.