New companies pick their recruiter, lawyer, bank and advisors early, from whoever is already in front of them. Fundz finds the new companies most likely to raise, about five months before the raise is public, and walks you through the first touch: who to contact, what to say for your role, and when to follow up.
In a peer-reviewed study, "First Is Best" (Carney and Banaji, PLOS ONE, 2012), people asked to choose quickly between two equal options took the first one they met 62% of the time. Buyers report the same pattern: in 6sense's 2025 survey of B2B buyers, four out of five deals went to the buyer's "pre-contact favorite". The hard part has always been knowing which of the thousands of companies registered every day deserve that first call.
Nearly every new registration is a local shop, a holding company or an experiment that does not work out. Fundz reads them every day in 12 states and scores each one with a model validated on companies it never saw. On 550,327 Colorado registrations, its top tier raised within two years at 6.2%, 58 times the base rate (n=4,574, 95% CI 5.5% to 6.9%), and the result replicated in Connecticut at 4.2%, 79 times that state's base rate. On the live feed across every state we cover, the top tier from 2025 raised within one year at 27 times the base rate (n=3,201). The median company that raised did so about five months after registering. When we checked 884 of our top-tier companies in September 2026, 83% were missing from a major third-party business database. See the full method and numbers.
Inception turns the score into five steps you can finish in about ten minutes a company:
From our August 2026 review of vendor documentation and published pricing: list vendors sell the registration and stop; platforms start watching only once a company is already visible.
| New-business list vendors | Deal-sourcing platforms | Fundz Inception | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sees the registration | Yes, sold as a list | No, coverage starts later | Yes, daily, 12 states |
| Scores the odds of a raise | No | No | Yes, validated on outcomes |
| Tells you what to do next | No | No | Yes, a first touch for your role |
| Keeps watching after discovery | No, ends at delivery | Yes, once visible | Yes, from day one |
| Measured outcome rates, with sample sizes | No | No | Yes, published with confidence intervals |
| Reported price | $49 to $349 per month | $15,000 to $30,000+ per seat per year | Included with Fundz Strategic |
Every company begins with a public document: its registration with a state. Fundz holds more than 1.6 million of these records, reads new registrations every day in 12 states, and scores each one with a model validated on companies it never saw for the odds it raises capital. Only the top tier makes your shortlist. Most of those companies are weeks or months away from having a website, a LinkedIn page, or a row in any sales database.
A new company picks its recruiter, its lawyer, its bank and its advisors early, and mostly from the people already in front of it. In a peer-reviewed study, "First Is Best" (Carney and Banaji, PLOS ONE, 2012), people asked to choose quickly between two equal options took the first one they met 62% of the time. In 6sense's 2025 survey of B2B buyers, four out of five deals went to the buyer's "pre-contact favorite". The hard part has always been knowing which of the thousands of new companies registered every day deserve that first call. That is what the score answers.
We measure it rather than guess. We tested our model on 550,327 Colorado registrations from 2021 to 2024 that it never saw in training. Of the 4,574 it placed in its top tier, 6.2% filed an SEC Form D raise within two years (95% CI 5.5% to 6.9%), 58 times the base rate. In Connecticut, a state the model was never trained on, the top tier raised at 4.2%, 79 times its base rate. For companies that raised, the median time from registration to the filing was about five months. These are measured historical rates, not promises about any single company.
Open a company and follow the steps. Fundz tells you why now and who is named on the filing, for your role, whether you recruit, practice startup law, provide banking, payroll or insurance, work as a fractional executive, or invest. Log the result as you go. Fundz keeps watching the company and alerts you when its website goes live, it posts its first job, or it files a Form D.
People whose business depends on being early with new companies: recruiters who place a startup's first hires, attorneys who handle formation and first financings, banks, payroll and insurance providers who set up a new company's accounts, fractional CFOs and operators who help founders get ready to raise, and investors and scouts who want to meet founders before a round is spoken for.
Not that we could find. In our August 2026 review of vendor documentation and published pricing, new-business list vendors do sell state filing data, but the relationship ends at delivery: no venture scoring and no monitoring afterward. Deal-sourcing platforms, which run 15,000 to 30,000 dollars per seat per year at reported prices, begin coverage when people signals or press appear, after the company is already visible. Fundz is the only platform we found that scores a company at registration, tells you what to do next, and keeps watching it as it grows.
Strategic. It includes the daily shortlist for your market, the people named on each filing, resolved websites where the evidence supports one, the role workflow, and the follow-up alerts.
Inception is included with Strategic: a daily shortlist of the new companies most likely to raise in your market, the people on the filing, resolved websites, and a step-by-step first touch for your role.