Every Form D gives the issuer's principal place of business.1 Count the raises by state, compare the start of the last decade with the end of it, and one change dominates.
In 2015 and 2016, Californian companies accounted for 22.1% of US operating companies' private raises of $1m to $1bn. In 2024 and 2025 they accounted for 15.1%. That is a fall of almost a third in the state's share. It is still the largest state by a distance.
The share went south and east. Texas rose from 8.8% to 10.7% and now files more private raises than New York, which slipped from 9.7% to 9.0%. Florida rose from 4.1% to 6.3%, a gain of half. Massachusetts, the other old centre of venture money, fell from 5.9% to 4.4%. Colorado, Georgia and Pennsylvania barely moved.
These are counts of raises, not dollars. A large share of Silicon Valley's money still goes into a small number of very large Californian rounds, and a $500m round counts here the same as a $1m one. What the counts measure is how many companies are out raising, and where they sit.
Capital follows founders, and founders have moved.
For an investor, the practical point is that a coverage map drawn in 2016 is out of date. The companies raising today are spread across more states, and many of them are raising from investors who have never met them. Distance used to be an excuse for not looking. The filings say it has become the reason a raise gets missed.
Method. US operating companies' Form D offerings (funds excluded) of $1m to $1bn, grouped by the issuer's state of principal place of business and by year of first sale. Each state's figure is its share of all such offerings in the two periods shown. Offerings with no US state are left out of both the count and the total.
“Capital follows founders, and founders have moved.”
Sources
- Form D data sets, US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2014 to 2026
Cite as: “California's share of private raises has fallen by a third”, Norvian Review, 6 October 2026.