Do founders who attend our events actually raise money? — VC Conf Network Research 2026

Our VC & startup network research

Do founders who attend our events actually raise money?

A 2026 study of 16,298 startups in our network — findings, caveats, and how we did it

Sergei Litvinenko @ VCconf.com · June 17, 2026 · 23 events · public-web data

The short version

We traced funding outcomes for every startup we could identify across our 23 events. The headline: more than 1 in 3 of these startups have raised funding, paid-ticket founders raise at an even higher rate, and at least 1,367 were funded by investors who were also in our rooms. None of this proves our events caused the rounds — but it's a clear picture of who shows up: fundable founders and active, check-writing investors. Below is everything we found, what it does and doesn't mean, and how the data was pulled.

37.6%
of 16,298 tracked startups have raised funding
40.9%
paid-ticket founders raised — above the baseline
1,367
funded by investors who attended our events

Findings

What we found

1
More than 1 in 3 of our startups have raised
37.6%
Of 16,298 startups we could trace, at least 6,126 (37.6%) have raised a funding round, based on publicly available information. That's a high share for any startup cohort — and it's a floor, not a ceiling: many founders announce "we closed a round" without it ever surfacing in structured public data, so the real number is higher.
2
Paid-ticket founders raise at a higher rate
40.9%
Among the 651 paid-ticket startups we could identify, 40.9% raised — meaningfully above the 37.6% baseline. Those founders raised $4.15B in total, with a $5M median check and a $21.7M average. Read carefully, this is a segment signal: paid attendees tend to be earlier-stage or first-time founders using events to break in — and they convert to funding at a higher clip than the network as a whole.
3
At least 1,367 startups were funded by investors from our own network
1,367
We matched the investors behind disclosed rounds against our event attendee lists by name and firm. At least 1,367 funded startups (22.3% of all funded startups in the network) raised from an investor who has attended our events. Not every startup discloses who led or joined a round, so the true overlap is larger.
4
Startups connected to our investors raise larger rounds
+43%
Across all funded startups with a disclosed amount, those linked to one of our investors show a median round of $10M vs $7M for the rest — a +43% gap. Inside the post-event window the gap widens to +88% ($12M vs $6.4M median), though that slice is small (n≈60) and should be read as directional. This is a correlation: it may reflect selection (larger startups attract known funds) as much as any network effect. Either way, it's a strong signal of the company our network keeps.
5
When the rounds happened — and why "before" is a feature, not a bug
$9.8B+

For the startups where we could date a round:

Timing relative to event Startups Total raised Median check
Before the event 436 $46.5B $7.7M
0–6 months after 168 $5.0B $8.0M
6–12 months after 144 $4.8B $10.0M
12+ months after 177 $5.8B $15.0M

The "before" cohort is large — but that's not noise. It means proven founders close a round and then join VC events to meet later-stage VCs & family offices. Our events serve the full fundraising lifecycle, not just first-time raisers. In the dated post-event windows alone, startups raised at least $9.8B; extrapolated across the rounds we couldn't date, the true post-event figure is likely well into the tens of billions.

6
The stage mix
The funded startups skew exactly where a healthy early-stage network should: Seed 1,093 (+221 pre-seed variants), Series A 1,163, Series B 535, Series C 257, then a long tail through Series D-F and grants. This is an early-stage engine with real later-stage depth.
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Interpretation

What it proves — and what it doesn't

Let's be precise, because precision is what makes the numbers usable in front of investors.

What it does not prove

That attending an event caused a startup to raise. We didn't run a controlled experiment, and we're not going to pretend the "before-event" rounds happened because of us. The +43% / +88% gaps are correlations with obvious selection effects.

What it does show

The startups in our network raise at a high rate, the paid segment raises even more often, and our rooms are full of investors who actually deploy — at least 773 distinct investors are tied to 1,367+ funded startups.

  • The startups in our network raise at a high rate, and the paid segment raises even more often — so the founders buying tickets are exactly the fundable kind. Those investors meet at 1:1 speed pitches.
  • Our rooms are full of investors who actually deploy — at least 773 distinct investors are tied to 1,367+ funded startups.
  • And the honest causal logic still holds: funding starts with a meeting. An investor can't write a check to a founder they've never met. A matched 1:1 pitch is the first, necessary step in the exact sequence — meet → follow-up → diligence → check — that produces every round in this dataset. We put 20 of those first steps in front of each founder in a single afternoon, matching them with investors by stage, sphere, and geo.

That's the claim we stand behind: not "we fund startups," but "we put fundable founders in front of investors who fund — and the track record of both sides is right here."

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Methodology

How we did it

We want this to survive scrutiny, so here's the full build:

  • When: assembled in June 2026 and finalized June 17, 2026.
  • Who: run internally by Sergei Litvinenko – software developer in our VC Conf team.
  • Source: publicly available web data (open Google results), not a paid database like Crunchbase or PitchBook. Funding signals, round dates, and amounts were collected from public announcements and disclosures surfaced on the open web.
  • The base: 19,504 startups are listed in our event records. We could process 16,298 of them (the rest lacked a usable company name or website to match on). All rates above use the 16,298 traceable startups as the denominator unless stated otherwise.
  • Matching logic: ticket buyers were matched to funded startups by email domain or name; investors were matched to disclosed rounds by name or firm. Where a startup's funding was public but its investors weren't, it counts toward "funded" but not toward "funded by our network."

!Limitations

  1. Dates aren't always public. Many rounds appear without a date, so the timing table and the post-event figures cover only the subset we could date — every post-event number is a minimum.
  2. Amounts aren't always disclosed. Founders often say "we raised" without a figure, so total-capital numbers undercount reality and can look small relative to the count of funded startups.
  3. Correlation ≠ causation. The "linked to our investors" round-size gaps reflect selection as well as any network effect; the post-event linked slice is small (n≈60).
  4. Open-web data is noisier than a paid DB — it's broad and cheap, but it will miss quiet rounds and occasionally mismatch. We chose coverage, speed and cost over the false precision of a single paid source.

✓Confidence at a glance

Claim Value Confidence
Funded startups in network 6,126+ (37.6%) High
Funded by our investors 1,367+ (22.3% of funded) High
Paid-ticket founders who raised 40.9% of 651 High
Raised after attending 329 dated / ~1,000+ extrapolated Medium
Post-event capital (dated) $9.8B+ Medium
Linked vs unlinked median round +43% High
Post-event linked vs unlinked +88% (n≈60) Medium
All figures from our internal June 2026 network study; capital and timing numbers are minimums constrained by public disclosure. Correlational claims are labeled as such.
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