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Overview

Signal data helps you find companies before they’re widely known. These are early indicators that a company is growing, raising funding, or becoming interesting: job postings, web traffic, social media activity, product launches, hiring velocity.

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What You’re Looking For

Founder signals:
  • New company formations
  • Founders in “stealth mode”
  • Founder backgrounds and previous exits
  • Team composition changes
Funding signals:
  • Indicators that a company is raising (even before announced)
  • Investor interest signals
  • Press and media coverage
Hiring signals:
  • New job postings (especially leadership roles)
  • Hiring velocity (how fast they’re growing)
  • Engineering team growth
  • Location expansion
Web and product signals:
  • Website traffic growth
  • Product launches and updates
  • App store rankings
  • Social media activity

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Early Stage Signal Providers

For pre-seed and seed investors looking for companies before they raise or become widely known. These providers often scrape data from government regulatory filings and match them with people data to round out the profile of the company.
ProviderNotes
GravityUS-focused
EvertraceEurope-focused

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Later Stage Signal Providers

Typically, these providers will be better for Series A+ investors tracking growth signals and company momentum.
ProviderNotes
SpecterBroad coverage. Easy to use data dumps from S3.
HarmonicGraphQL API. Supportive of many events in the VC tech ecosystem.
Choosing between these is largely personal preference. Focus on how well you can filter to get signal from noise: that’s what matters most with these tools. Sit with your investment team to decide which one is best for you.

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Considerations

Speed vs accuracy: Signal providers prioritize speed over perfection. The data might have gaps or errors, but you’re seeing it before anyone else. Volume can be overwhelming: These providers generate lots of signals. You need good filtering and scoring to avoid drowning in noise. Complement, don’t replace: Signal data works best alongside traditional company and people data, not instead of it. See Considerations for cost and vendor relationship guidance.