Loading...
Benchmark · Q3 2026
Contributor count and 6-week growth rate are the second-strongest fundraise-precursor signal after commit velocity. A hiring burst (3+ new organizational committers in a 14-day window) frequently precedes a round announcement.
TL;DR
Real benchmark data from ~400 venture-backed startups across 20 sectors. Refreshed weekly every Monday. Data from Q3 2026. Free under CC BY 4.0.
| Sector | Median contributors | Top quartile |
|---|---|---|
| Data Infrastructure | 40 | 100 |
| Space Tech | 37 | 58 |
| Web3 | 30 | 84 |
| Healthcare | 23 | 48 |
| EdTech | 22 | 56 |
| E-commerce Infrastructure | 22 | 69 |
| Social & Community | 22 | 55 |
| Enterprise SaaS | 16 | 50 |
| Robotics | 15 | 83 |
| HR Tech | 13 | 34 |
| AgTech | 13 | 49 |
| PropTech | 12 | 35 |
| Gaming | 12 | 31 |
| Supply Chain | 11 | 26 |
| Legal Tech | 6 | 12 |
Sorted by Median contributors. Data from Q3 2026. Source: public GitHub data, CC BY 4.0.
A distinct GitHub user who has committed to any public repository in the startup's organization within the current tracking period.
A hiring burst signal fires when 3 or more new organizational committers (with @company.com emails) appear in a 14-day window — distinct from external drive-by contributors.
Our SSRN research found that startups showing sustained contributor growth above the sector median for 6+ weeks are 3.2× more likely to announce a round within 90 days.
Get the full dataset
JSON, CSV, NDJSON, API. Free, no auth.
Download Dataset (CC BY 4.0)CC BY 4.0 · Free forever · https://signals.gitdealflow.com