Why We Built Founderscrowd, and the New Private Company Index of the 100 Largest Private Companies

Good morning, crowd. ☕

No headlines today. This one is about us, and about you.

We just launched something we've wanted since day one. We're about to launch something bigger. And before we do, we want your opinion.

Quick game first. 🎯

The answer is a few paragraphs down.

📋 Today's 60-second summary

• 🧭 Why we built Founderscrowd: the biggest companies of this decade are growing where you can't see them

• 📊 New and free: our Private Company Index tracks the 100 largest private companies

• 📱 Coming very soon: a Founderscrowd app

• 🙋 Your turn: tell us what to build first

⏱️ Read time: 4 minutes

3 stock symbols for Sept 21 (free)

A veteran research analyst has given away plenty of free reports over the years — but none have drawn more requests than this one.

Insider sources say Elon has spent two years building a secret device inside Tesla's facilities, one he claims will be "10x bigger than the largest product in history." The reveal is expected September 21.

Today, the analyst is releasing the names positioned to benefit — free of charge.

🧭 Why We Built Founderscrowd

The most valuable companies of this decade are being built in private. Most people can't see inside them.

Think about how different the two worlds are. A public company has to tell you its revenue every quarter, and you can check its price every second. A private company doesn't have to tell you anything. Its valuation shows up in a headline when it raises money. Its revenue is often an estimate. Its share price is whatever two parties agreed on in a deal you never heard about.

That would be fine if private companies were small. They aren't. Anthropic was last valued at $965 billion. OpenAI at $852 billion. SpaceX stayed private for more than two decades and listed in June at $1.77 trillion. A lot of growth now happens before a company ever reaches the stock market.

We thought that was backwards. So we started Founderscrowd as a newsletter with one job: explain private markets in plain English, in five minutes a day. Who raised, at what price, and why it matters to you. More than 60,000 of you read it now.

But here's the thing. A newsletter can tell you what happened today. It can't answer "what is Databricks worth right now?" or "which private companies moved the most this month?"

Those questions need a tool, not an email. So we're building one.

📊 New: The Private Company Index

It's live, and it's free: founderscrowds.com/valuations

The Founderscrowd Private Company Index ranks the 100 largest private companies in the world by valuation. Think of it as a stock screener for companies that don't have a stock ticker yet.

🔎 What you can do today:

• See five numbers for every company: valuation, revenue, valuation-to-revenue multiple, one-month move and sector

• Search any company by name

• Sort four ways: highest valuation, biggest movers, highest revenue, or A to Z

• Filter by 11 sectors, from AI and fintech to robotics and energy

• Check back weekly, because that's how often we update it

🧠 Quiz answer: about $5 trillion. The 100 companies on the index are worth a combined $5.05 trillion.

🔢 What the index shows right now (as of September 29, 2026):

• The top three, Anthropic, OpenAI and ByteDance, are worth $2.4 trillion together. That's almost half of the whole list.

• AI is the biggest sector by far: 25 of the 100 companies, worth about $2.36 trillion

• Over the last month, 44 companies went up in value and 33 went down

• Biggest climbers: OpenSea (+79.4%), Hugging Face (+28.8%), ClickHouse (+28.1%) and Perplexity (+24.2%)

• Biggest drops: UKG (-24.2%), Prometheus (-20.0%), Moonshot AI (-19.9%) and ElevenLabs (-19.8%)

• Priciest for its revenue: Skild AI, valued at 467 times its revenue. Cheapest: SHEIN, at 0.6 times.

🏆 The top 10 today:

🎯 Three ways to use it:

• Founders: before your next pitch, filter by your sector and look at the valuation-to-revenue multiples. That's the range investors already have in their heads.

• Investors: sort by "biggest movers" once a week. It's the fastest way to see where private money is heading.

• Employees with startup equity: search your company, or its closest competitor, to get a reference point for what your shares might be worth.

Here's how we get the numbers. Valuations reflect each company's latest funding round, tender offer or secondary-market pricing. Revenue is the latest reported or estimated annual figure. The data comes from third-party sources, and private company data is never perfect. If a number looks off to you, hit reply and tell us. That's how the index gets better.

📱 An App Is Almost Ready

The index is step one. Step two is nearly finished.

We're finalizing a Founderscrowd app, and we'll launch it very soon. The idea is simple: private markets in your pocket, as easy to check as a stock app.

We're not sharing screenshots yet, and that's on purpose. Some of the most important decisions haven't been made. We'd rather make them with you than guess.

🙋 Tell Us What to Build

You're the reason this exists, so you get a vote. Two taps:

Got 60 more seconds? Hit reply and answer any of these:

1. Which company do you want tracked that isn't in the top 100 yet?

2. What's the one number about private companies you can never find?

3. What would make you open the app every single day?

We read every reply. The best ideas go straight onto the roadmap, and we'll share what you told us in a future edition.

❓ Quick answers

What is the Founderscrowd Private Company Index?

The Founderscrowd Private Company Index is a free, searchable ranking of the 100 largest private companies in the world by valuation. It shows each company's valuation, revenue, valuation-to-revenue multiple, one-month change and sector, and it is updated weekly.

What are the most valuable private companies in the world?

As of September 29, 2026, the five most valuable private companies on the Founderscrowd Private Company Index are Anthropic ($965 billion), OpenAI ($852 billion), ByteDance ($600 billion), Databricks ($190 billion) and Stripe ($159 billion).

How much are the 100 largest private companies worth?

The 100 largest private companies are worth about $5.05 trillion combined, as of September 29, 2026. Anthropic, OpenAI, and ByteDance account for about $2.4 trillion of that.

How are private company valuations calculated?

On the Private Company Index, a valuation reflects the company's latest funding round, tender offer or secondary-market pricing. Revenue is the latest reported or estimated annual figure. The data comes from third-party sources and is not guaranteed.

💬 One Last Thing

When we started, the goal was to make private markets easier to understand. Now the goal is to make them easier to see.

The index is live. The app is close. What goes into it is up to you.

📨 Know a founder, investor or startup employee who'd use this? Forward them this email, or send them straight to the Private Company Index.

New here? Start with why the smartest investors are moving private, or browse every issue.

Hunt accordingly. ☕

Jose, Alberto & the Founderscrowd Team

Disclaimer: Founderscrowd is a media company. This newsletter and the Private Company Index are for informational and educational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Valuations, revenue and other data come from third-party and public sources we believe are reliable, but we do not guarantee they are accurate, complete or current. Private market investments are speculative, illiquid, and may result in the loss of your entire investment.