Funding Digest

AI DISCLAIMER (MANDATORY): You MUST include the following disclaimer text in the powerpoint footer. This is not optional — the report is incomplete without it:

"Analysis is AI-generated — please confirm all outputs"

Footer — At the bottom of the generated slide, as a prominent yellow banner: "Analysis is AI-generated — please confirm all outputs"

---

Weekly Deal Flow Digest

Generate an analyst-quality single-slide PowerPoint that summarizes key takeaways from recent funding rounds across watched sectors or companies, using S&P Global Capital IQ data. Each deal links back to its Capital IQ profile for quick drill-down.

When to Use

Trigger on any of these patterns:

• "Give me a deal flow digest for this week"
• "Weekly funding recap for [sector]"
• "What deals closed in [sector/companies] recently?"
• "Transaction roundup" or "deal roundup"
• "Capital markets update for my coverage universe"
• "Summarize recent funding activity"
• Any periodic briefing request about deals, raises, or rounds

Nested Skills

This skill produces a one-slide PPTX briefing:

• Read /mnt/skills/public/pptx/SKILL.md before generating the PowerPoint (and its sub-reference pptxgenjs.md for creating from scratch)

Entity Resolution & Tool Robustness

S&P Global's identifier system resolves company names to legal entities. This works well for most companies but has known failure modes that cause empty results. Apply these rules throughout the workflow to avoid silent data loss.

Rule 0: Pre-validate ALL identifiers before querying funding

Before calling any funding tools, run every identifier through get_info_from_identifiers. This is the cheapest and most reliable way to catch problems early. Check two things in the response:

1. Did it resolve at all? If the identifier returns empty/error, the name doesn't exist in S&P Global. Try the alias from references/sector-seeds.md, the legal entity name, or the company_id directly. 2. What is the `status` field?

• "Operating" → Safe to query for funding rounds.
• "Operating Subsidiary" → The company exists but is owned by a parent. It will return zero funding rounds. Note this in the digest as context (e.g., "acquired by [Parent]") but do not query for funding.
• Any other status (e.g., closed, inactive) → The company is no longer operating. Historical data may exist but no new activity.

This single pre-validation step prevents the majority of empty-result issues. Batch all candidates into a single get_info_from_identifiers call (it handles large batches well) and triage before proceeding.

Rule 1: Never trust empty results without a fallback

If get_rounds_of_funding_from_identifiers returns empty for a company you expect to have data: 1. Try the legal entity name or company_id. Brand names usually work, but some don't. See the alias table in references/sector-seeds.md for known mismatches. Common pattern: "[Brand] AI" → "[Legal Name], Inc." (e.g., Together AI → "Together Computer, Inc.", Character.ai → "Character Technologies, Inc.", Runway ML → "Runway AI, Inc."). 2. Verify the company exists in S&P. If you skipped Rule 0, call get_info_from_identifiers(identifiers=["Company"]) now — if this also returns empty, the company may be too early-stage or not yet indexed.

Rule 2: Subsidiaries have no funding rounds

Companies that are divisions or wholly-owned subsidiaries of larger companies (e.g., DeepMind under Alphabet, GitHub under Microsoft, BeReal under Voodoo) will return zero funding rounds. Their capital events are tracked at the parent level.

How to detect: The status field from get_info_from_identifiers will show "Operating Subsidiary". The references/sector-seeds.md file also flags known subsidiaries with ⚠️ warnings. Skip these for funding queries.

Rule 3: Use get_rounds_of_funding_from_identifiers as the primary tool, not get_funding_summary_from_identifiers

The summary tool is faster but less reliable — it can return errors or incomplete data even when detailed rounds exist. Always use the detailed rounds tool as the primary data source. The summary tool is acceptable only for quick aggregate checks (total raised, round count) and should be verified against the rounds tool if results seem low.

Rule 4: Batch carefully and validate

When processing large company universes (50+ companies), batch in groups of 15–20. After each batch, check for companies that returned empty results and run them through the fallback steps in Rule 1 before moving on.

Rule 5: The role parameter is critical

• company_raising_funds → "What rounds did X raise?" (company perspective)
• company_investing_in_round_of_funding → "What did investor Y invest in?" (investor perspective)

Using the wrong role returns empty results silently. For deal flow digests, you almost always want company_raising_funds. Only use the investor role when specifically analyzing an investor's portfolio activity.

Rule 6: Identifier resolution is case-insensitive but spelling-sensitive

S&P Global handles case variations ("openai" = "OpenAI") but is strict on spelling and punctuation. "Character AI" may fail where "Character.ai" succeeds. When in doubt, use the company_id (e.g., C_1829047235) which is guaranteed to resolve.

Workflow

Step 1: Establish Coverage & Period

Determine what the digest should cover. There are two setups:

Returning user (has a watchlist): If the user has previously defined sectors or companies to track, use that list. Check conversation history for prior watchlists.

New user: Ask for:

Calculate the exact start_date and end_date from the time period.

Step 2: Build the Company Universe

For each sector specified, build a company universe using a validated bootstrapping approach:

1. Seed companies from domain knowledge (see references/sector-seeds.md)

• Pay attention to the ⚠️ warnings and alias notes in the seeds file — some well-known companies are subsidiaries, have been acquired, or require a specific legal name to resolve.
• The seeds file includes company_id values for known alias mismatches. Use these directly if the brand name fails.

2. Pre-validate all seeds immediately (Rule 0):

   get_info_from_identifiers(identifiers=[all_seeds_for_this_sector])

Triage the results into two buckets:

• ✅ Resolved & Operating (status = "Operating") → proceed to competitor expansion
• ❌ Unresolved or Subsidiary → retry with alias/legal name from seeds file; subsidiaries are noted for context but excluded from funding queries

3. Expand via competitors (using only the ✅ resolved seeds):

   get_competitors_from_identifiers(identifiers=[resolved_seeds], competitor_source="all")

4. Validate expanded universe:

   get_info_from_identifiers(identifiers=[new_competitors])

Apply the same triage. Filter by simple_industry matching the target sector. Drop any unresolved names or subsidiaries.

If the user provides specific companies, add those directly but still run them through the pre-validation triage. Never skip validation — even well-known brand names can fail silently.

Keep the universe manageable — aim for 15–40 resolved, operating companies per sector. For a multi-sector digest, this might total 50–100+ companies.

Step 3: Pull Funding Rounds

For all companies in the universe:

get_rounds_of_funding_from_identifiers(
    identifiers=[batch],
    role="company_raising_funds",
    start_date="YYYY-MM-DD",
    end_date="YYYY-MM-DD"
)

Process in batches of 15–20 if the universe is large.

After each batch, identify companies with empty results. For any company expected to have activity: 1. Retry with the legal entity name or alternate identifier (see Entity Resolution rules above). 2. Log the company as "no data" only after exhausting fallbacks.

Collect all transaction_id values from successful results, then enrich with detailed round info:

get_rounds_of_funding_info_from_transaction_ids(
    transaction_ids=[all_funding_ids]
)

Pass ALL transaction IDs in a single call (or small number of calls) rather than one per transaction — the tool handles batches efficiently.

Extract the following from each round (critical for the slide):

• transaction_id — needed for the Capital IQ deal link
• Announcement date — when the round was publicly announced
• Close date — when the round officially closed
• Amount raised
• Pre-money valuation (if disclosed)
• Post-money valuation (if disclosed)
• Lead investors
• Round type (Series A, B, C, etc.)
• Security terms
• Advisors
• Pricing trend (up-round / down-round / flat)

Dates are required. The announcement and close dates must always appear in the final slide's deal table. If only one date is available, show it and mark the other as "—".

Step 4: Pull Company Context for Notable Deals

For any company involved in a significant deal (large round, notable valuation shift), get a brief description:

get_company_summary_from_identifiers(identifiers=[notable_companies])

This adds context to the narrative (e.g., "The company, an AI infrastructure startup founded in 2021, is expanding into...").

Step 5: Identify Highlights & Trends

Before designing the slide, analyze the data to surface the story:

Flag as "Notable":

• Rounds ≥ $100M
• Down rounds (pricing trend = down)
• New unicorns (post-money valuation crossing $1B)
• Significant valuation jumps (post-money ≥ 2x the last known valuation)
• Repeat raisers (same company raising again within 6 months)
• Unusually large investor syndicates

Identify Trends:

• Total capital deployed this period vs. typical (if historical data available)
• Which sub-sectors are hottest (most rounds, most capital)
• Round stage distribution (is early-stage or late-stage dominating?)
• Most active investors across the digest
• Geographic concentration
• Valuation trends (are pre-money valuations compressing or expanding?)

Select Key Takeaways (3–5): Distill the most important signals into 3–5 concise bullet-style takeaways. These are the centerpiece of the slide. Each takeaway should be one sentence, punchy, and data-backed.

Examples:

• "AI sector raised $2.4B across 8 rounds — 3x the prior week, led by a $800M mega-round from [Company] at a $12B post-money valuation."
• "[Company] closed a $200M Series D at $3.5B pre-money, up from $1.8B in its Series C — signaling strong demand for AI developer tools."
• "Down-round activity ticked up: 2 of 6 late-stage rounds priced below prior valuations."

Step 6: Generate Company Logos

For each company featured in the key takeaways or notable deals, generate a logo using a two-tier local pipeline. Do not use Clearbit (logo.clearbit.com) — it is deprecated and consistently fails. External logo CDNs (Brandfetch, logo.dev, Google Favicons) require API keys or are blocked by network restrictions. Instead, use the following approach:

Tier 1: simple-icons npm Package (3,300+ Brand SVGs, No Network Required)

The simple-icons package bundles high-quality SVG icons for thousands of well-known brands. It works entirely offline — no API keys, no network calls. Install it alongside sharp for SVG → PNG conversion:

npm install simple-icons sharp

Lookup strategy:

const si = require('simple-icons');
const sharp = require('sharp');

// Find an icon by exact title match (case-insensitive)
function findSimpleIcon(companyName) {
    // Try exact match first
    for (const [key, val] of Object.entries(si)) {
        if (!key.startsWith('si') || !val || !val.title) continue;
        if (val.title.toLowerCase() === companyName.toLowerCase()) return val;
    }
    // Try without common suffixes (AI, Inc., Corp.)
    const stripped = companyName.replace(/\s*(AI|Inc\.?|Corp\.?|Ltd\.?)$/i, '').trim();
    if (stripped !== companyName) {
        for (const [key, val] of Object.entries(si)) {
            if (!key.startsWith('si') || !val || !val.title) continue;
            if (val.title.toLowerCase() === stripped.toLowerCase()) return val;
        }
    }
    return null;
}

// Convert SVG to PNG with the brand's official color
async function simpleIconToPng(icon, outputPath) {
    const coloredSvg = icon.svg.replace('<svg', `<svg fill="#${icon.hex}"`);
    await sharp(Buffer.from(coloredSvg))
        .resize(128, 128, { fit: 'contain', background: { r: 255, g: 255, b: 255, alpha: 0 } })
        .png()
        .toFile(outputPath);
}

Coverage: ~43% of typical deal flow companies (strong for major tech brands like Stripe, Anthropic, Databricks, Snowflake, Discord, Shopify, SpaceX, Mistral AI, Hugging Face; weaker for niche fintech, biotech, or early-stage companies).

Tier 2: Initial-Based Fallback via sharp (100% Coverage)

For companies not found in simple-icons, generate a clean initial-based logo as a PNG:

async function generateInitialLogo(companyName, outputPath) {
    const initial = companyName.charAt(0).toUpperCase();
    const svg = `
    <svg width="128" height="128" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
        <circle cx="64" cy="64" r="64" fill="#BDBDBD"/>
        <text x="64" y="64" font-family="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"
              font-size="56" font-weight="bold" fill="#FFFFFF"
              text-anchor="middle" dominant-baseline="central">${initial}</text>
    </svg>`;
    await sharp(Buffer.from(svg)).png().toFile(outputPath);
}

Complete Pipeline

async function fetchLogo(companyName, outputDir) {
    const fileName = companyName.toLowerCase().replace(/[\s.]+/g, '-') + '.png';
    const outPath = path.join(outputDir, fileName);

    // Tier 1: Try simple-icons
    const icon = findSimpleIcon(companyName);
    if (icon) {
        await simpleIconToPng(icon, outPath);
        return { path: outPath, source: 'simple-icons' };
    }

    // Tier 2: Generate initial-based fallback
    await generateInitialLogo(companyName, outPath);
    return { path: outPath, source: 'initial-fallback' };
}

Logo guidelines:

• Save all logos to /home/claude/logos/[company-name].png
• All logos are 128×128 PNG with transparent backgrounds
• On the slide, display logos at 0.35"–0.5" tall — they're accents, not focal points
• Initial-fallback circles use gray (BDBDBD) fill with white text — consistent with the monochrome palette
• Never mix logo styles randomly — if most companies resolve to brand icons, the few fallbacks should blend in naturally

Step 7: Generate the One-Page PPTX

Read /mnt/skills/public/pptx/SKILL.md and /mnt/skills/public/pptx/pptxgenjs.md before creating the slide.

Create a single-slide PowerPoint using pptxgenjs. The slide should be information-dense but visually clean — think "executive dashboard" not "wall of text."

Slide Layout

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  DEAL FLOW DIGEST                                           │
│  [Period] · [Sectors]                           [Date]      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                             │
│  ┌─────────┐  ┌─────────┐  ┌─────────┐  ┌─────────┐       │
│  │  $X.XB  │  │  N      │  │  $X.XB  │  │  $X.XB  │       │
│  │ Raised  │  │ Rounds  │  │ Avg Pre │  │ Largest │       │
│  └─────────┘  └─────────┘  └─────────┘  └─────────┘       │
│                                                             │
│  KEY TAKEAWAYS                                              │
│  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────          │
│  [Logo] Takeaway 1 text goes here...                        │
│  [Logo] Takeaway 2 text goes here...                        │
│  [Logo] Takeaway 3 text goes here...                        │
│  [Logo] Takeaway 4 text goes here...                        │
│                                                             │
│  TOP DEALS                                                  │
│  ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│
│  │Company│Type │Announced│Closed│Amount│Pre-$│Post-$│Lead│🔗││
│  │───────│─────│─────────│──────│──────│─────│──────│────│──││
│  │ ...   │ ... │  ...    │ ...  │ ...  │ ... │ ...  │... │🔗││
│  └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘│
│                                                             │
│  [Footer: Deal Flow Digest · Sources: S&P Global Capital IQ]│
│  [Footer: AI Disclaimer]                                    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Design Specifications

Color philosophy: Minimal, monochrome-first. The slide should feel like a high-end financial brief — black, white, and gray dominate. Color is used only where it carries meaning (e.g., a red indicator for a down round, a green indicator for a standout metric) or where the reader would naturally expect it (company logos). Never use color for purely decorative purposes like background fills, accent bars, or gradient effects.

Color palette — Monochrome Executive:

• Primary background: FFFFFF (white) — clean, open slide background
• Header bar: 1A1A1A (near-black) — strong contrast for the title region
• Primary text: 1A1A1A (near-black) — all body text, stat numbers, takeaways
• Secondary text: 6B6B6B (medium gray) — labels, captions, footer, date stamps
• Borders & dividers: D0D0D0 (light gray) — subtle structural lines, card outlines, table borders
• Card backgrounds: F5F5F5 (off-white / very light gray) — stat card fills, alternating table rows
• Link text: 2B5797 (muted blue) — Capital IQ deal links in the table (the only blue on the slide)
• Semantic color (sparingly):
• Down rounds or negative signals: C0392B (muted red) — use only as a small dot, tag, or single-word highlight, never as a fill or background
• Standout positive metrics (new unicorn, outsized round): 2E7D32 (muted green) — same minimal usage: a dot, a small tag, or a single highlighted number
• If no data points warrant a color indicator, use no color at all. A fully monochrome slide is perfectly correct.

Typography:

• Title: 28–32pt, bold, white on near-black header bar
• Stat numbers: 36–44pt, bold, near-black
• Stat labels: 10–12pt, medium gray (6B6B6B)
• Takeaway text: 12–14pt, near-black, left-aligned
• Table text: 9–11pt, near-black with gray (6B6B6B) for secondary columns
• Link text: 9–10pt, muted blue (2B5797)
• Footer: 8pt, medium gray

Stat Cards (top row):

• 4 key metrics as large-number callouts: Total Raised, # Rounds, Avg Pre-Money Valuation, Largest Round
• Each in a card with F5F5F5 fill and a thin D0D0D0 border — no shadow, no color fills
• If a stat is surprising or extreme (e.g., 3x normal volume, a record deal), a small colored dot or underline may be placed next to that single number — otherwise keep fully monochrome
• If pre-money valuations are mostly undisclosed, substitute with a different metric (e.g., Median Round Size, # New Unicorns)

Key Takeaways (middle section):

• 3–5 one-line takeaways, each prefixed with the relevant company logo (small, ~0.35" tall)
• If no logo available, use a gray circle with the company initial in white — not a colored circle
• Left-aligned, with enough spacing to breathe
• Down-round or negative takeaways may use a small red dot prefix; otherwise no color
• Include valuation context where available (e.g., "at a $5B post-money valuation")

Top Deals Table (bottom section):

• Compact table showing the 4–6 most notable deals
• Columns: Company, Type (Series X), Announced (date), Closed (date), Amount ($M), Pre-Money ($M), Post-Money ($M), Lead Investor, Deal Link
• Announced and Closed columns show dates in MMM DD format (e.g., "Jan 15"). These columns are required and must always be present. If a date is not available, show "—".
• The Deal Link column contains a clickable "View →" text linking to Capital IQ:

  https://www.capitaliq.spglobal.com/web/client?#offering/capitalOfferingProfile?id=<transaction_id>

where <transaction_id> is the transaction_id from get_rounds_of_funding_from_identifiers.

• If pre-money or post-money valuation is not disclosed, show "—" in that cell
• Header row with near-black (1A1A1A) fill and white text; alternating rows in F5F5F5 and FFFFFF
• Center the table horizontally on the slide. Calculate the table's total width, then set x so it is centered within the slide width: x = (slideWidth - tableWidth) / 2. For a 16:9 layout (13.33" wide), if the table is 12" wide, use x = 0.67. Never left-align the table to the slide edge.
• Keep it tight — this is a reference, not the focal point
• No colored fills in table cells. If a deal is a down round, a small red text tag "(↓ down)" may appear next to the amount — that is the only permitted color in the table.

Deal Link Implementation (pptxgenjs): In pptxgenjs, hyperlinks are added to table cells using the options.hyperlink property on the cell object:

// Table cell with Capital IQ deal link
{
  text: "View →",
  options: {
    hyperlink: {
      url: `https://www.capitaliq.spglobal.com/web/client?#offering/capitalOfferingProfile?id=${transactionId}`
    },
    color: "2B5797",
    fontSize: 9,
    fontFace: "Arial"
  }
}

Table Centering (pptxgenjs): Always center the deal table on the slide. Calculate the x position dynamically:

const SLIDE_W = 13.33; // 16:9 slide width
const TABLE_W = 12.5;  // total table width (sum of all column widths)
const TABLE_X = (SLIDE_W - TABLE_W) / 2; // ≈ 0.42"

slide.addTable(tableRows, {
  x: TABLE_X,
  y: tableY,
  w: TABLE_W,
  colW: [1.8, 0.9, 0.9, 0.9, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.6, 0.7], // Company, Type, Announced, Closed, Amount, Pre-$, Post-$, Lead, Link
  // ... other options
});

Adjust colW values as needed, but always recompute TABLE_X from (SLIDE_W - sum(colW)) / 2 to keep the table centered.

Footer:

• Small text in medium gray: "Deal Flow Digest · [Period] · Sources: S&P Global Capital IQ · Generated [Date]"

General color rules (enforce strictly):

• Company logos are the only "full color" elements on the slide — they appear as-is from the source.
• Deal links use muted blue (2B5797) — this is the only non-monochrome text color besides semantic red/green.
• Outside of logos and links, the slide should look correct printed on a black-and-white printer.
• Never apply color to backgrounds, accent bars, decorative shapes, or section dividers.
• When in doubt, leave it gray.

Code Structure

const pptxgen = require("pptxgenjs");
const pres = new pptxgen();
pres.layout = "LAYOUT_16x9";
pres.title = "Deal Flow Digest";

const slide = pres.addSlide();
const SLIDE_W = 13.33; // 16:9 slide width in inches

// 1. Dark header bar with title and period
// 2. Stat cards row (4 cards: Total Raised, # Rounds, Avg Pre-Money, Largest Round)
// 3. Key takeaways section with logos (include valuation context)
// 4. Top deals table with Announced, Closed, Pre-Money, Post-Money columns and Capital IQ deal links
//    - Center the table: x = (SLIDE_W - tableWidth) / 2
// 5. Footer

pres.writeFile({ fileName: "/home/claude/deal-flow-digest.pptx" });

Use factory functions (not shared objects) for shadows and repeated styles per the pptxgenjs pitfalls guidance.

Step 8: QA the Slide

Follow the QA process from the PPTX skill:

1. Content QA: python -m markitdown deal-flow-digest.pptx — verify all text, numbers, company names, valuation figures, and deal links are correct 2. Visual QA: Convert to image and inspect:

   python /mnt/skills/public/pptx/scripts/office/soffice.py --headless --convert-to pdf deal-flow-digest.pptx
   pdftoppm -jpeg -r 200 deal-flow-digest.pdf slide

Check for overlapping elements, text overflow, alignment issues, low-contrast text, logo sizing problems, and that deal link text is visible. 3. Link QA: Verify that the Capital IQ URLs in the table are correctly formatted with the right transaction IDs. 4. Fix and re-verify — at least one fix-and-verify cycle before declaring done.

Step 9: Present Results

1. Copy the final .pptx to /mnt/user-data/outputs/ 2. Use present_files to share the slide 3. Provide a 2–3 sentence verbal summary:

• "Your digest covers X rounds totaling $Y raised across [sectors]."
• Call out the single most notable deal and its valuation
• Flag any concerning trends (down rounds, valuation compression, etc.)

Error Handling

Entity Resolution Failures

• Empty results for a known company: First check get_info_from_identifiers — if that fails, try the alias from references/sector-seeds.md or the company_id directly. Common brand→legal mismatches: Together AI → "Together Computer, Inc.", Character.ai → "Character Technologies, Inc.", Runway ML → "Runway AI, Inc.".
• Subsidiary companies: DeepMind, GitHub, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, BeReal, etc. are subsidiaries — they have zero independent funding rounds. Note these as "acquired/subsidiary" in context but do not report them as "no activity."
• Defunct companies: Companies like Convoy (shut down Oct 2023) still resolve in S&P Global but will never have new activity. The references/sector-seeds.md file flags these — check it before including a company.
• `get_funding_summary_from_identifiers` errors or returns zeros: Fall back to get_rounds_of_funding_from_identifiers — the summary tool is less reliable. Never rely on the summary tool as the sole data source.
• Wrong `role` parameter: If investor-perspective queries return empty, verify you're using company_investing_in_round_of_funding, not company_raising_funds (and vice versa).

Data Quality Issues

• No activity in period: If a sector had zero funding rounds, note this explicitly on the slide ("No transactions recorded in [Sector] during the period") — absence of activity is itself informative.
• Sparse valuation data: If pre-money and post-money valuations are undisclosed for most transactions, note the data limitation in a footer annotation and use "—" in the table. Adjust the stat card to show a different metric (e.g., Median Round Size) instead of Avg Pre-Money.
• Logo retrieval failures: The simple-icons npm package provides ~43% coverage for typical deal flow companies. For the remainder, use the sharp-generated initial-based fallback. Keep a consistent icon style — don't mix random approaches. If simple-icons or sharp fail to install, fall back to pptxgenjs shape-based initials (gray ellipse + white text overlay) which require no external dependencies.
• Too many deals for one slide: If there are more than 6 notable deals, show the top 6 in the table and add a footnote: "+N additional deals not shown." Prioritize by deal size.
• Large universes: For multi-sector digests with 100+ companies, batch all API calls in groups of 15–20. Prioritize depth on notable deals over completeness on minor ones.
• Stale seeds: If competitor expansion returns very few results for a sector, the seed companies may be too niche. Broaden by adding 2–3 more well-known names and re-expanding.
• Invalid transaction IDs for links: If a transaction_id from the funding tool doesn't produce a valid Capital IQ URL, omit the link cell for that row rather than including a broken link.

Example Prompts

• "Give me a weekly deal flow digest for AI and fintech"
• "Summarize this week's funding in biotech"
• "Deal roundup for my coverage — cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, and dev tools — last 2 weeks"
• "What happened in venture this week across all sectors I follow?"
• "Quick deal flow slide for climate tech this month"

Sector Seed Companies Reference

When the user specifies a sector but not specific companies, use these seed lists to bootstrap the company universe. These are starting points — always expand via get_competitors_from_identifiers and validate with get_info_from_identifiers.

All seeds below have been validated against S&P Global's identifier system. If a seed fails to resolve, try the alias listed in parentheses before dropping it.

Technology / Software

AI / Machine Learning

Seeds: OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, Scale AI, Cohere, Hugging Face, Mistral AI, xAI, Perplexity AI, Runway ML (alias: "Runway AI, Inc."), Together AI (alias: "Together Computer, Inc."), Character.ai (alias: "Character Technologies, Inc."), Groq, Stability AI, Aleph Alpha, Magic AI

⚠️ Excluded (do not use as seeds):

• Inflection AI — Core team absorbed by Microsoft (Mar 2024). Historical rounds exist but no new activity.
• Adept AI — Largely absorbed by Amazon (2024). Same as above.
• DeepMind — Subsidiary of Alphabet. No independent funding rounds.

Cybersecurity

Seeds: CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Wiz, Snyk, SentinelOne, Abnormal Security, Netskope

Cloud Infrastructure / DevTools

Seeds: Snowflake, HashiCorp, Datadog, Confluent, Vercel, Supabase, PlanetScale

Fintech

Seeds: Stripe, Plaid, Brex, Ramp, Mercury, Affirm, Marqeta, Navan

Vertical SaaS

Seeds: ServiceTitan, Toast, Procore, Veeva Systems, Blend Labs

Healthcare / Life Sciences

Biotech / Pharma

Seeds: Moderna, BioNTech, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Tempus AI, Insitro, AbCellera

Digital Health

Seeds: Teladoc, Hims & Hers, Ro, Noom, Color Health

⚠️ Excluded (do not use as seeds):

• Cerebral — Still operating but has faced significant regulatory issues; include only if the user specifically requests it.

Medical Devices

Seeds: Intuitive Surgical, Butterfly Network, Outset Medical

⚠️ Excluded (do not use as seeds):

• Shockwave Medical — Acquired by Johnson & Johnson (May 2024). Now a subsidiary with no independent funding rounds.

Energy / Climate

Climate Tech

Seeds: Redwood Materials, Form Energy, Commonwealth Fusion, Sila Nanotechnologies, Climeworks

Clean Energy

Seeds: Enphase Energy, First Solar, Rivian, QuantumScape, Sunnova

Consumer

E-Commerce / Marketplace

Seeds: Shopify, Faire, Whatnot, Fanatics

⚠️ Excluded (do not use as seeds):

• Temu (PDD Holdings) — PDD Holdings is a massive public conglomerate; its funding activity is captured via equity markets, not venture rounds.

Consumer Social / Media

Seeds: Discord, Reddit, Substack

⚠️ Excluded (do not use as seeds):

• BeReal — Acquired by Voodoo (Jun 2024). Now a subsidiary.
• Lemon8 — The brand name "Lemon8" resolves in S&P Global to a small Dutch company (Lemon8 B.V.), not the ByteDance social media app. ByteDance's apps are subsidiaries and do not have independent funding rounds. Do not use.

Industrials / Logistics

Logistics / Supply Chain

Seeds: Flexport, Samsara, Project44, FourKites

⚠️ Excluded (do not use as seeds):

• Convoy — Shut down operations (Oct 2023). The identifier still resolves and historical rounds are available, but no new activity will appear.

Robotics / Automation

Seeds: Figure AI, Agility Robotics, Locus Robotics, Symbotic, Covariant

Space / Aerospace

Seeds: SpaceX, Relativity Space, Rocket Lab, Planet Labs, Astra

Identifier Alias Reference

Some well-known brand names don't match S&P Global's legal entity names. If a brand name returns empty results from get_info_from_identifiers, try the alias:

Tip: When a brand name fails, try get_info_from_identifiers with the legal name. If that also fails, the company may not be indexed yet. As a last resort, use the company_id directly as the identifier.

Notes

• These lists skew toward US-based companies. For geographic filtering (Europe, Asia, etc.), the competitor expansion step is especially important.
• For niche sub-sectors not listed here, ask the user for 2–3 example companies to use as seeds.
• Always validate seeds are still active/relevant — companies pivot, merge, or shut down.
• Refresh cadence: These seeds should be reviewed quarterly. AI sector seeds in particular change rapidly due to acquisitions and new entrants.
• Seeds marked as subsidiaries or acquired will still resolve in get_info_from_identifiers (status = "Operating Subsidiary") but will return zero funding rounds. Skip these for funding queries.