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Engineering acceleration
Any data-driven indicator that helps an investor identify a promising startup before traditional deal sourcing channels surface it. Traditional deal flow relies on warm introductions, pitch decks, and press coverage. Deal flow signal supplements this with quantitative data from sources like GitHub engineering activity, hiring patterns, and web traffic. The key advantage of signal-based deal sourcing is timing: signals typically appear weeks or months before a startup enters the mainstream investor pipeline.
Metrics, signal types, and decision rules from the methodology.
The named mechanism behind VC Deal Flow Signal.
The total number of commits to a startup's most active public GitHub repository over a rolling 14-day window.
The percentage change in commit velocity compared to the preceding 14-day window.
A sustained increase in a startup's engineering output relative to its own historical baseline.
The change in the number of unique contributors to a startup's GitHub repository over time.
A signal type indicating that a startup's contributor growth rate exceeds 50% in a short window.
A signal type indicating that a startup has created three or more new public repositories in 30 days.
A signal type indicating that a startup's commit velocity has increased 150% or more versus its baseline.
This definition is published under CC BY 4.0. Cite as:
The Data Nerd. "Deal Flow Signal." VC Deal Flow Signal Glossary, https://signals.gitdealflow.com/define/deal-flow-signal.
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