1,307 companies raised money in eight states last year. 93% of them weren't allowed to tell you.

If you have ever searched for "how much do companies like mine raise," you have been given a number. It came from a blog post, which got it from a survey, which asked founders to self-report. Nobody had to file anything.

There is a better source, and it is public. Every company that raises money privately in the United States has to tell the SEC, on a form called a Form D, within 15 days of the first sale. It lists what they offered, what they actually sold, how many investors bought, and which exemption they used.

We pulled the last 18 months for eight states. Here is what is actually in there.

What companies actually raised

1,307 companies across the eight. The median offering sits between $1.9M and $3.0M in every one of them — remarkably flat across states with very different economies.

A few real examples from Ohio, each with its filing:

• Vurvey Labs, Cincinnati — offered $40,000,000, sold $21,999,987 (0001999739-26-000003)
• Drone Express, Dayton — offered $10,000,000, sold $2,702,500 across 3 investors (0001897956-26-000001)
• Global Pain Center, Dayton — offered $2,499,999, sold $2,092,723 across 5 investors (0001917600-26-000003)
• 34 GiGs, Westerville — offered $1,500,000, sold $305,000 across 6 investors (0002134230-26-000002)

You can look up any accession number on EDGAR. That is the entire point of citing them.

The finding that actually matters

Of those 1,307 raises:

• 1,211 used Rule 506(b) — 93%
• 72 used Rule 506(c) — 6%
• 23 used Rule 504 — 2%

Here is why that number is worth stopping on.

506(b) forbids general solicitation. If you raise under it, you may not publicly market the offering. No posting "we're raising" on LinkedIn. No pitching the round from a stage at a demo day open to the public. No emailing a list of people you have no prior relationship with. You may only approach investors you already had a substantive relationship with before the raise began.

506(c) permits all of that — you can advertise a 506(c) raise on a billboard if you like. The trade is that you must take reasonable steps to verify every investor is accredited. Not a checkbox where they self-certify: verification, usually a tax return, a brokerage statement, or a letter from their CPA or lawyer.

So: 93% of the founders who raised money in these eight states were operating under a rule that prohibited them from advertising it, while the advice everyone reads online says to build in public and announce your round.

Most founders learn which of these they picked from their lawyer, after the term sheet, at the point where changing course is expensive. Some learn it after they have already done the thing their exemption forbade.

Who gets paid to place these raises — and how rarely

Form D also names anyone paid sales compensation on the offering. Across the eight states, we found intermediaries on very few of them:

Against 1,307 raises. The overwhelming majority of companies in these states raised without a placement agent at all — no broker, no banker, no finder's fee. If someone is telling you that you need to hire them to reach investors in Ohio, the filings do not support it.

One thing to know about this data

Form D is not a startup dataset. Most of the filings in it are not companies at all: they are investment funds, SPVs, real estate syndications and insurance vehicles, all of which use the same form.

Across these eight states, 4,541 filings produced only 1,307 operating companies — 71% were set aside. That is why the median above is $2–3M and not the $5M+ you would get by counting everything. If you have seen a "typical raise" figure that looks high, this is usually why.

We exclude vehicles by industry classification and by name, which is a heuristic. It will occasionally set aside a real company called "Something Ventures," and it will occasionally let a blandly-named fund through. We would rather tell you that than pretend the filter is perfect.

Look up your own state

We built the same report as a free tool. Pick your state, optionally your sector, and it returns the companies that actually raised, what they sold, which exemption they used, and the accession number for every figure.

Build your Capital Source Map →

No account, nothing emailed, the report opens on the page.

Source: SEC Form D, Reg A and Reg CF filings, 18 months to August 2026. TyRey Technologies is not a broker-dealer, investment adviser or law firm. Nothing here is an offer, a recommendation, or investment advice, and which exemption fits your raise is a question for your securities counsel.