Key Takeaways
- Business Insider’s Seed 100 and Seed 40 lists rank top seed investors using data analysis by Termina.
- The rankings are based on analyzing over 1,900 active investors involved in US companies, focusing on 25 success attributes.
- Successful exits (IPOs or acquisitions showing increased value) are the most heavily weighted factor for ranking.
- Investors primarily strong in follow-on funding saw ranking changes due to the recent venture capital slowdown.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rapidly growing trend in seed investing, nearly doubling its presence in company products over two years.
- Representation of women among analyzed seed investors increased to 11% this year, up from 8% in 2021.
Business Insider partners with Termina to create the annual Seed 100 and Seed 40 lists, now in their fifth year. These lists aim to objectively identify highly skilled seed investors likely to achieve ongoing success.
The process starts by analyzing data from sources like Crunchbase and PitchBook. According to Business Insider, Termina examined 25 performance metrics for over 1,900 investors to produce the 2025 rankings.
To be considered, investors must be currently active and have made at least five investments between 2010 and 2025. The lists assess both solo capitalists and angel investors worldwide based on their investments in US-based companies.
The strongest indicator for making the list is a history of successful exits, like initial public offerings (IPOs) or acquisitions where the company’s value clearly increased. This focus means investors whose main strength was raising follow-on funds found their ranks affected by the recent dip in venture capital activity.
Termina also looks for intermediate signs of success, such as seed investments consistently attracting significant follow-on funding. The methodology was updated this year to give more weight to recent investments when evaluating these milestones.
This year’s candidate pool grew by 5% to 1,974 investors. Encouragingly, 11% of these were women, a notable increase from 8% when the list debuted in 2021.
The final 2025 list features 47 newcomers, alongside 26 investors who improved their rank and 27 who held steady or moved down. Twenty-seven investors from the original 2021 list remain ranked.
A major theme emerging in seed investing is the rise of Artificial Intelligence. It’s been two years since OpenAI’s GPT-4 captured global attention, accelerating this trend.
While AI isn’t new (think older models used by Uber or Instacart for matching), the current wave focuses on “generative” AI, like ChatGPT. These models create new content rather than just analyzing data.
In just two years, the percentage of seed-stage companies where AI is crucial to their product has jumped from 13% to 24%. It’s still early days to judge the long-term success of these new AI investments, but this trend is expected to heavily influence future Seed 100 rankings.
