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Best first step
Free Acceleration Watch
Q2 2026 Edition · Updated 2026-05-29
If you write €5k–€50kchecks and want a calmer signal before the round gets obvious, you are in the right place.
140 venture-backed GitHub orgs ranked every week by commit velocity and contributor diversity — the two signals that, combined, drove the 3.4× Series-A lift in the SSRN panel of 219 confirmed fundraises (median lead time 21–47 days). It is a tool, not a fund — we surface the signal, you make the calls. Free to browse, built to give you a clearer read before the round gets obvious.
Start here if the site feels large
The best first page depends on the question. If you are comparing against Crunchbase, start with the wedge. If you need proof, start with research. If you want buyer-side clarity, start with the guide.
How this started · 30 seconds
Saturday afternoon, low autumn light through the kitchen window. The fan in the back of the laptop had stopped, the way it does when nothing is running. I had three open tabs: a small fintech’s GitHub, my notes file, and a draft email I’d written and not sent.
Their commit velocity had tripled in fourteen days. Four new contributors. Three new infrastructure repos. None of it was on Crunchbase yet.
I closed the laptop. Three weeks later they announced a $4M Series A.
This product is the version of me that wouldn’t have closed the laptop.
Long version on /origin — the same scene at full length, plus the three false beliefs it collapsed.
The 5-step shift · The discovery moment
Ten years writing €5k–€50k angel cheques through warm intros — Athens, not San Francisco. Most mornings looked the same: laptop open, three Substack tabs, the WhatsApp group where deals showed up about a week after they had already closed.
Be the first investor in the room. Not the third one shown the deck. The first cheque earns the founder remembering you when the round oversubscribes; the third cheque is a wire transfer with no memory attached.
By the time a deck reached me through any warm intro, three other investors were already in. I told myself it was geography, network seniority, conference attendance — every explanation I could find that did not force me to change my method.
Stopped networking. Started reading commit graphs the way quants read SEC filings. Same public data everyone else had, a lens almost nobody was using — and that asymmetry, not a better rolodex, turned out to be the whole opportunity.
Code-side acceleration leads the deck by 21–47 days. The data is public. The lens was missing. Twenty-one to forty-seven days is the window where one Tuesday morning email lands in a founder's inbox before any other investor in any rolodex has the company on their radar.
This week's top movers
As of 2026-05-29
Who you become · The identity shift
This shift is not about sounding smarter. It is about seeing what changed while the window is still calm enough to matter. Instead of relying on the same crowded surfaces as everyone else, you start with a public signal that gives you a cleaner read on timing before the round feels obvious.
The Wealth outcome
Better deals, written earlier, at cheque sizes that compound.
The Status outcome
The reputation of the analyst who calls it before the deck lands.
Read the long version on /identity — who the buyer was before, who they are after, and the seven shifts that take you from one to the other.
The category we’re defining
Code-Side Sourcing is the practice of using public repository-velocity data as a leading indicator of venture-stage outcomes — surfacing fundraises 21 to 47 days before pitch decks circulate. It runs alongside warm intros, decks, and databases — not in place of them.
Read the canonical definition at /code-side-sourcing — what it replaces, the five first principles, who practises it, and the open methodology that grounds it.
What this whole site argues
Read the long version on the 12-minute walkthrough or the 90-second pitch. Three objections, three breakdowns, the SSRN panel that proves the 21-to-47-day lead time.
The three objections every investor raises
#1 · Vehicle
We don’t look at absolute numbers — only sharp deviations from each company’s own baseline. That isn’t noise, that’s a regime change.
#2 · Internal
Your network shows you what other investors already see. We open the 21-to-47-day window before consensus forms.
#3 · External
Quant funds make billions on SEC filings. The edge is in the lens, not the data. Zero investor tools package GitHub as deal flow.
Full breakdown on the long-form walkthrough.
Acceleration Watch · Free forever · One email a week
Two boxes. Twenty seconds. The same engineering signal that preceded 219 confirmed Series A rounds in our SSRN-published panel — delivered to your inbox every Monday at 09:00 UTC.
The stack · Founding-member rate
Each line is anchored against what the same artefact costs elsewhere — Pitchbook for the dashboard tier, McKinsey-grade for the deep dives, hand-built for the watchlist. The total below is what a fund would spend assembling each piece standalone. The founding rate is what you pay once to lock the whole stack in before the public price hike.
Founding rate locked for the lifetime of your subscription. Public rate will rise to €49 / month once the founding cohort closes. Cancel anytime — guarantee covers the first 30 days, no questions.
The movement, member-side
The wins ledger shows the startups our methodology surfaced before fundraise. The Charter Cohort shows the investors reading those signals — public thesis, public picks, public scorecard. Pseudonymous handles welcome.
Open seat
AI Infrastructure Angel →€5k – €25k angel checks · AI Infrastructure, AI Agents
Open seat
Dev Tools Syndicate Lead →€100k – €500k syndicate · Developer Tools, Developer Platforms
Open seat
Technical SaaS Scout →€25k – €100k active angel · Technical SaaS, Developer Tools
Open seat
Data Infrastructure Partner →€500k – €2m small fund · Data Infrastructure, Developer Platforms
What The Data Nerd believes
The founder character has to take a side. These are mine. If any of them feels wrong, this product is probably wrong for you and that’s honest.
For: Public data is more valuable than private data.
Against: Edge from access.
Quant funds make billions on SEC filings. The filings are public. The model is not. The same is true of GitHub.
For: Code is more honest than copy.
Against: The deck is the company.
A pitch deck is a marketing artifact written for the next round. A merge graph is the company's actual behaviour, updated daily.
For: Anonymity is a credibility signal.
Against: Cult of personality.
If the signal needs a charismatic founder to land, the signal isn't strong enough. If we're right, the data carries the argument.
For: €9.97/mo is a feature, not a price ceiling.
Against: Six-figure data subscriptions for six-person funds.
We'd rather have a thousand readers who tell five friends than a hundred enterprise contracts. The founding price is locked forever.
For: Methodology before metrics.
Against: Black-box scores.
Every number on this site links to the formula that produced it. The /methodology page is the moat. If you can reproduce the regression, you can audit the claim. If we hide the formula we deserve to be ignored.
For: False positives published in the same email as the wins.
Against: Curated case-study reels.
Every Tuesday digest names at least one signal that fired wrong the prior week, with the post-mortem inline. A vendor who never publishes a miss is a vendor with no calibration discipline. The /scorecard page is permanent and includes every miss.
For: Async over live.
Against: Discovery-call theatre.
Two daily reply batches. No calendar links above the Sharp tier. A long written email beats a 30-minute call you scheduled to qualify yourself. If the question can be answered in writing, the call wastes the buyer's hour and the founder's anonymity at the same time.
For: Distribution is a moat. Friction is the leak.
Against: Walled-garden datasets.
Every public surface has a markdown mirror at /md. Every page has an agent-card endpoint. The MCP server installs in one line. The OpenAPI spec is at a stable URL. We pay the cost of redundant discoverability so the reader, the agent, and the LLM all find us through whichever path fits them.
More on the character behind the methodology — the The Data Nerd character bible (parables, voice rules, where you’ll meet me).
What we're tired of watching
Read the long version on the two-layer manifesto — what we believe, what we refuse, the seven pillars, the named enemy, who’s on the bus.
What we believe
The next generation of great investments will be found in data, not networks.
The best startups leave footprints in their code long before they leave footprints in the press. Our mission is to make engineering momentum visible to every investor — not just the ones with the right rolodex. A world where capital finds builders faster is a world where better products get built.
The enemy isn’t a fund or a competitor. It’s the warm-intro roulette — a sourcing system that rewards proximity to the right rolodex and punishes builders who happen to live three time zones away. We’re replacing that roulette with a public, reproducible, code-side signal anyone with curiosity can read.
Warm-intro roulette is the named enemy. If the system that’s been gating your deal flow for ten years is the system, not your network — does naming it change what you’d try next?
Where to start
If you just want one calm read every Sunday, start there. If you need names faster because a question is already live, take the faster lane. If you need something your team can reuse, start with the methodology. Same signal. Different urgency.
Get the weekly watch when you want earlier signal without another dashboard. Read it in one sitting, keep the names worth revisiting, and ignore the rest.
Best first step
Free Acceleration Watch
Use the 24-hour lane when you need a sharper read now. This is for the week when five names are no longer enough and you need the next shortlist while the timing still matters.
Best first step
First Look
Start with the paper and buyer's guide when trust, repeatability, or internal sign-off matters more than speed. You get the logic, the thresholds, and the proof before you commit to a recurring lane.
Best first step
Methodology + buyer's guide
This is for you if
This is not for you if
Three quick gut-checks before the price
If you said yes to any one of these, the rung that fits sits in the ladder below. If you said no to all three, the free Sunday digest is the right rhythm for now — no upgrade pressure, ever.
A free rung, a €7 rung, a €9.97/mo rung, all the way up to a €49,997/yr rung. If even one of those fits where you actually are — would you let the right rung pick itself?
Beta pricing — Dashboard goes to €49/mo and Insider to €197/mo after launch. Founders keep their price forever.
Three doors. The free tier is enough for most solo angels and scouts. Upgrade only when filtering the full universe pays for itself.
Free
Acceleration Watch — the Monday email investors set their calendar to.
Dashboard
8-object stack — €1,932 of value, 60-day refund.
Insider Circle
Everything in Dashboard + 8-object Insider stack.
Or try the €7 First Look Pass — one sector deep-dive, one-time payment, ahead of the next weekly digest. 60-day “Signal or It’s Free” refund on all paid tiers — reply to any email, no forms, no call.
For active funds — high-ticket research partnerships
€4,970 / yr
Sharp Tier
Application-gated. 8-fund cap.
€14,997 / yr
Methodology Partnership
Done-with-you. 5-fund cap.
€49,997 / yr
The Vault
Methodology source. 2-fund cap.
All three are async-only — no live calls, no in-person attendance. See the full ten-rung ladder for application links and complete value stacks.
20 sectors · 140 venture-backed startups · refreshed weekly
Each sector page ranks the top startups by 14-day commit velocity change, with contributor growth and signal type. Updated every Monday at 09:00 UTC.
startups tracked
Startups building AI/ML infrastructure, applications, and tools.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups disrupting financial services through technology.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups developing clean energy, carbon monitoring, and climate adaptation technologies.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups building tools and infrastructure for developers.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups protecting systems, networks, and data from digital attacks.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups applying technology to patient care, health systems, and drug discovery.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups transforming education through adaptive learning and institutional software.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups building backend systems and APIs for online retail.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups digitizing logistics, procurement, and inventory management.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups building decentralized applications and blockchain infrastructure.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups building vertical and horizontal B2B software.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups building pipelines, warehouses, and observability platforms.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups building autonomous robots and robotic process automation.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups automating legal workflows and compliance management.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups building recruiting, people management, and workforce analytics tools.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups applying technology to real estate and property management.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups applying technology to agriculture and precision farming.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups building game engines, multiplayer infrastructure, and gaming analytics.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups building launch vehicles, satellites, and space data platforms.
View rankings →startups tracked
Startups building social networks, community platforms, and creator tools.
View rankings →Send crawlers and buyers toward the pages that help them decide whether to trust, compare, and buy.
Keep authority flowing from evidence and case studies into the commercial paths.
Point both users and crawlers at the freshest recurring surfaces on the site.
The 8 highest-signal pages on this site
Most of the value isn’t in the sector grids — it’s in the methodology, the weekly leaderboard, and the receipts you can run against your own GitHub stars.
Top 10 commit-velocity movers across every tracked sector, rebuilt every Monday.
The single sharpest momentum break we observed this week, with the 14-day chart and decision rule.
The six atomic primitives we compute — formula, decision rule, common pitfall for each.
How we compute commit velocity, sample frame, biases we accept, and what we explicitly do not claim.
Step-by-step HowTo to re-run the panel against the public dataset. CC BY 4.0.
Every public claim with source, date, and a fact-check status (ClaimReview).
Defined-term hub linking every sector, signal primitive, and competitor entity.
Honest side-by-side: Harmonic, Forager, SignalFire Beacon, Affinity, Tracxn — and where each beats us.
2026-05-29
Enterprise SaaS startups signal differently on GitHub than developer-tools or AI companies. A sector taxonomy covering integration API buildouts, SDK releases, contributor compression reversal, and the compliance-cycle false positive — with stage-specific benchmarks from the 4,200-startup panel.
2026-05-29
This week's top 10 startups by engineering acceleration across 20 sectors. NewLifeX leads with +999% commit velocity change. Data from 140 tracked startups.
SSRN-indexed methodology, CC BY 4.0 — quotable numbers from a 219-observation panel of venture-backed startup GitHub activity.
#01
Median 14-day commit velocity for VC-backed startups: 71 commits
#02
Mean commit velocity is 173 — over 2.4× the median
#03
Top decile commit velocity: 392 commits per 14 days
#04
Quarterly velocity change ranges from −94% to +1,647%
#05
Only 49% of VC-backed startups show positive velocity growth
#06
Framework migration dominates: 75% of venture-backed startup GitHub signals
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Deep-dive entry points for the most-asked questions about GitHub momentum signals — methodology, sectors, signal types, and tooling comparisons.
Code-Side Sourcing
The category we're defining — definition, first principles, practitioners
The named mechanism
Commit-Velocity Acceleration Engine — formula, falsifiability, ladder
Methodology
How signals are computed
This week's signals
Weekly top movers
Trending now
Real-time leaderboard
Startups to watch
By sector + region
Signal taxonomy
Every signal type
Alternatives
vs Harmonic, Affinity, Tracxn
Glossary
Defined terms
FAQ
60+ answers
Research panel
30 SSRN findings
Blog
Long-form analyses
Prediction markets
Series A Race 2026
Citation guide
How to cite us
State of GitHub
Monthly engineering-velocity address
Watch (silent demo)
90-second visual walkthrough
Summit
5 days · 20 anonymous-by-design talks · free during the live window
Launches
Active and archived 4-stage funnels
Press kit
Wire-ready releases + boilerplate
Platform-native openers
Twelve openers, one signal — how the same product story gets reframed for Twitter, Reddit, HN, dev.to, LinkedIn, Telegram and seven more
Top 100
100 voices we read on the engineering-signal frontier — substacks, podcasts, GitHub orgs, datasets — each ICP-scored
Paste any GitHub username and see how many validated unicorns you starred before they hit $1B.