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Top 100 GitHub-Signal Startups — This Week's Ranked Index
Weekly composite leaderboard of the 100 startups with the strongest GitHub engineering signals across 20 sectors. Refreshed every Monday at signals.gitdealflow.com/weekly/top-100.
Most 'top startup' rankings collapse engineering momentum into a single noisy metric — usually star count or one-week velocity change. Both are easy to game and both are dominated by outliers (a +999% velocity change on a six-commit repo doesn't tell you anything useful).
The weekly Top 100 GitHub-Signal Startups index uses a four-component composite, with each component capped, so a steady org with 1,800 commits and 100 contributors can't be out-ranked by a tiny repo with a single one-week burst. The exact formula: SignalScore = clamp(velocityChange%, -20, 150) + clamp(contribGrowth%, 0, 150) + min(100, commits14d / 10) + min(50, contributors / 2). Range -20 to 450. Same scoring is reused every week so rank changes are comparable week-over-week.
The full leaderboard is published at /weekly/top-100, with each weekly edition at /weekly/top-100/<isoweek>. Machine-readable JSON for the latest edition is at /weekly/top-100/data.json (and per-week at /weekly/top-100/<isoweek>/data.json) with a CC-BY-4.0 license. There's also an RSS feed at /weekly/top-100/feed.xml for AI crawlers and human subscribers.
What to do with the list: anything above Signal Score 200 has at least two of the four components firing simultaneously, which is the cleanest interpretation of 'engineering momentum.' Use it as a sourcing filter, not a buy signal.
Quote-ready takeaway
VC Deal Flow Signal publishes a weekly Top 100 ranked index of startups by composite GitHub engineering signal. The Signal Score combines four capped components — commit velocity change, contributor growth, raw commit scale, and contributor count — so no single metric dominates. Live at signals.gitdealflow.com/weekly/top-100, refreshed every Monday.
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Frequently asked questions
How often is the Top 100 refreshed?
Every Monday at 08:10 EEST. The pipeline runs tools/top-100/build.py against the freshly synced GitHub dataset, generates the new ISO-week JSON, and deploys the canonical page to signals.gitdealflow.com/weekly/top-100/<isoweek>. The Substack mirror follows on Monday at 09:00 EEST.
Why are the Signal Score components capped?
To prevent one metric — usually a +999% one-week velocity spike on a tiny repo — from dominating the ranking. Capped components mean a steady org with real scale (1,800 commits, 100 contributors) can outscore a one-week outlier. It also makes rank changes comparable week-over-week because the scoring is invariant.
How many startups are in the leaderboard?
Up to 100, deduplicated by GitHub organization. The underlying dataset contains 100 sector-slot records; some startups appear in multiple sectors (e.g. zapplyjobs sits in Robotics, AI/ML, and HR Tech). After dedupe the leaderboard is typically 90-95 distinct organizations, with cross-listings surfaced as 'also in' fields.
Can I cite this index in research or commentary?
Yes. CC-BY-4.0 license. Citation format: 'VC Deal Flow Signal (GitDealFlow), Top 100 GitHub-Signal Startups, <iso-week>, https://signals.gitdealflow.com/weekly/top-100/<iso-week>'. The /citation-guide page has BibTeX/APA/MLA/Chicago/RIS exports.
Is the underlying dataset open?
Yes. Per-week JSON at /weekly/top-100/<isoweek>/data.json. Full source dataset (309 rows across startup-signals, sector-aggregates, signal-type-timeseries) is mirrored at huggingface.co/datasets/the-data-nerd/vc-deal-flow-signal under CC-BY-4.0.