Reports · Q3 2026

State of the founder graph — Q3 2026

Q3 2026: Facebook alumni started 3 new companies since 2025, more than any other company; San Francisco leads new company formation with 841; the most common sector move is from Software & IT into Artificial Intelligence. The graph now holds 74,067 founders and 43,107 companies.

Generated 2026-09-30 · window 2025–2026 vs 2023–2024

74,067founders in the graph

43,107companies with founders

78,982relationships

224startup mafias

Founder factories, 2025–2026

Companies whose alumni started the most companies founded in 2025–2026. Top: Facebook with 3 new companies started by 3 alumni.

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<a href="https://founders.io/reports/state-of-the-founder-graph-2026-q3"><img src="https://founders.io/charts/state-of-the-founder-graph-2026-q3/factories.svg" alt="Founder factories, 2025–2026 — founders.io" width="720" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>

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Where new companies are being founded, 2025–2026

Cities by companies founded in the window, with known founders. San Francisco 841 (was 569) · New York City 118 (was 178) · London 40 (was 42) · Los Angeles 25 (was 18) · Boston 17 (was 10)

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<a href="https://founders.io/reports/state-of-the-founder-graph-2026-q3"><img src="https://founders.io/charts/state-of-the-founder-graph-2026-q3/cities.svg" alt="Where new companies are being founded, 2025–2026 — founders.io" width="720" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>

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Sectors gaining founders, 2025–2026

Sectors by new companies with known founders. Enterprise Software 748 (was 692) · Industrials & Manufacturing 174 (was 55) · Software & IT 122 (was 76) · Fintech 117 (was 109) · Healthcare 114 (was 131)

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<a href="https://founders.io/reports/state-of-the-founder-graph-2026-q3"><img src="https://founders.io/charts/state-of-the-founder-graph-2026-q3/sectors.svg" alt="Sectors gaining founders, 2025–2026 — founders.io" width="720" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>

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Where founders come from

For each founder, the sector of an earlier company they founded or worked at, against the sector of the company they founded later. Same-sector moves are excluded, so this is a map of crossover, not of volume.

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<a href="https://founders.io/reports/state-of-the-founder-graph-2026-q3"><img src="https://founders.io/charts/state-of-the-founder-graph-2026-q3/migration.svg" alt="Where founders come from — founders.io" width="720" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>

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Serial founders on a streak

Founders who started two or more companies in the last five years. Henrik Åberg, Ariana Adireh Anderson, Yesol Heo, François-Guillaume Ribreau, Ashish Vaswani, Elon Musk.

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<a href="https://founders.io/reports/state-of-the-founder-graph-2026-q3"><img src="https://founders.io/charts/state-of-the-founder-graph-2026-q3/serial.svg" alt="Serial founders on a streak — founders.io" width="720" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a>

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Method. All figures are computed from the founder graph on the generation date: companies with at least one known founder, excluding placeholder entries. “Alumni” means people who founded or worked at a company. The graph is incomplete and community-corrected, so treat rankings as indicative and tell us what we’re missing. Cite as “founders.io, State of the founder graph — Q3 2026”.