TheShortlist

Issue 04 · Silicon Valley · Est. 2026

Two ways in.

01

For Founders

For pre-seed and seed founders. Apply, read your feedback, reapply when you have more to show. Founders who make The Shortlist are introduced to a partner fund.

Read on

02

For Investors

Tell us what you back. We send you only the founders who fit your thesis.

Read on

18,038

Outcome-labeled companies in the validation set. Built from primary regulatory filings, public alumni status directories, and disclosed venture portfolios. No Wikipedia. No third-party aggregators.

85

Hand-researched anchor companies, 57 winners and 28 failures. Three primary sources minimum per entry, one a primary document.

47

Rubric questions every applicant is scored against, across nine sections. Tied to peer-reviewed entrepreneurship literature.

From Issue 04

More money, worse odds.

The largest raises in our dataset all ended in failure. Capital defers the search for product-market fit. It does not replace it.

Read the issue