Founders Email List: Startup and SaaS Founders by Funding Stage, Industry and Country
Cleanlist People Search returned 727,097 profiles in the United States with a Founder, Co-Founder or Founder and CEO title on September 22, 2026, and 2,510,200 worldwide. 73,701 of the US profiles are at Software Development companies.
Each record holds the person's name, title, employer, employer domain and location. A work email is verified when you enrich the record, through a waterfall of 25+ data providers that stops at the first verified hit, for 1 credit; a direct dial is 10 credits, and a lookup that finds nothing costs nothing. Starter is $79 a month for 1,500 credits, so 1,000 verified emails fit in one month of Starter.
By Victor Paraschiv, CMO at Cleanlist. Counted in Cleanlist People Search on September 22, 2026.
What is a founders email list?
A founders email list is a set of company founder and co-founder contacts with verified work emails, filtered by the stage, industry and size of the companies they started.
The filter behind every count on this page: Job title is any of: Founder, Co-Founder, Founder & CEO, Co-Founder & CEO, Founder and CEO, Co-Founder and CEO. Search is free and unlimited on every plan, so you can reproduce any number below in the app at no cost.
Founders by company size, United States
| Company headcount | Profiles | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1-10 | 300,915 | 75% |
| 11-50 | 72,587 | 18% |
| 51-200 | 16,698 | 4% |
| 201-500 | 4,144 | 1% |
| 501-1,000 | 1,679 | 0% |
| 1,001-5,000 | 2,139 | 1% |
| 5,001-10,000 | 565 | 0% |
| 10,001+ | 2,724 | 1% |
325,646 of the 727,097 US profiles have no headcount band on the employer, so they drop out as soon as you filter by size.
By industry, United States
| Company industry | Profiles |
|---|---|
| Software Development | 73,701 |
| Advertising Services | 29,214 |
| Business Consulting and Services | 26,872 |
| IT Services and IT Consulting | 22,044 |
| Financial Services | 14,759 |
| Real Estate | 9,690 |
| Hospitals and Health Care | 8,323 |
| Technology, Information and Internet | 6,558 |
These industries account for 191,161 of the 727,097 US profiles (26%). Many employers carry a narrower industry label or none, so the rows do not add up to the total.
Founder titles (US)
| Who | Profiles |
|---|---|
| Founder, by title | 431,975 |
| Co-Founder, by title | 200,024 |
| Founder and CEO title variants | 119,310 |
By country
| Country | Profiles |
|---|---|
| United States | 727,097 |
| United Kingdom | 173,073 |
| Canada | 82,368 |
| Australia | 60,113 |
| Germany | 49,070 |
| India | 347,930 |
All countries: 2,510,200 profiles. The United States holds 29% of them.
Startups by funding stage
| Last funding stage | API value | Companies |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-seed | pre_seed | 4,039 |
| Seed | seed | 7,668 |
| Series A | series_a | 2,607 |
| Series B | series_b | 1,331 |
| Series C | series_c | 655 |
How to read these numbers
Founder is overwhelmingly a small-company title. Three quarters of the US founder profiles with a headcount band (300,915 of 401,451) are at companies of 1 to 10 people, and another 325,646 profiles carry no headcount band at all. For a startup list, filter by the company as well as the title.
Filtering founders by funding stage takes two steps over the API, because funding is a company filter there. Company Search takes the stage in snake_case (seed, series_a and so on). The table below counts US-headquartered Software Development companies by last funding stage. Save the companies at your stage, then search their domains for founder titles. In the app, People Search carries a funding-stage filter under company firmographics, which does both steps at once.
Software Development leads the industries counted (73,701), followed by Advertising Services (29,214) and Business Consulting and Services (26,872), where agencies and consultancies sit. Title strings matter here too: Founder returns 431,975 US profiles and Co-Founder 200,024, and with the four Founder and CEO variants added, the six titles return 727,097.
What a record contains
A People Search result carries the person's name, current title, employer and employer domain, location, and the employer's headcount band and industry where they are known. Enrichment adds a verified work email for 1 credit and a direct dial for 10 credits, and each is charged only when it is found.
The waterfall behind enrichment queries 25+ data providers in sequence and stops at the first verified hit. It returns 98% verified work email and 85% direct dial on the Cleanlist 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark, which is our own test run on a 500-lead sample. Results on your own list will differ.
Cleanlist does not own a database. People Search and enrichment query our data partners at request time, so the counts on this page move as their records change.
Build this list in Cleanlist
- Open People Search and set Job title, any of: Founder, Co-Founder, Founder & CEO, Co-Founder & CEO, Founder and CEO, Co-Founder and CEO; Person's country: United States.
- Narrow it with the company headcount, industry and country rows above.
- Save the results to a list. Search is free.
- Enrich the list: 1 credit per verified work email, 10 per direct dial, nothing for a lookup that finds nothing.
- Export it, or sync it to HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive.
New workspaces start on a 14-day Scale trial with 250 credits and 3 seats. Paid plans start at $79 a month with 2 seats included; the pricing page has the rest.
The same search over the Cleanlist API (Pro plan and above), as the request body:
{
"filters": {
"titles": [
"Founder",
"Co-Founder",
"Founder & CEO",
"Co-Founder & CEO",
"Founder and CEO",
"Co-Founder and CEO"
],
"location_country": [
"United States"
]
},
"limit": 25
}How these counts were made
- Each figure is the total that Cleanlist People Search (Company Search for the funding table) reported for one filter set on September 22, 2026. Searching costs nothing, and no records were saved or enriched to make this page.
- They are counts of matching profiles. A work email or phone number is found, and verified, only when a record is enriched.
- Title filters are a near-exact string match, case-insensitive, and the titles in one filter are combined with OR. A variant we did not list is a person the count misses, so treat every title-based figure as a floor. Department and management level are the search's own classification of each title.
- Titles and employers are self-reported, so some profiles are out of date. Check a sample of any segment before you send to it.
Compliance
In the United States, CAN-SPAM allows B2B cold email when it has accurate headers, a valid physical postal address and an opt-out you honor within 10 business days. In the UK and the EU, B2B outreach generally rests on legitimate interest under the GDPR, and UK rules treat sole traders and some partnerships like individuals. Canada's CASL requires consent before commercial email in most cases, so keep Canadian contacts in their own segment. This summary is general information and does not replace legal advice for your own campaigns.
Frequently asked questions
How many startup founders are there in the United States?
People Search returned 727,097 US profiles with a Founder, Co-Founder or Founder and CEO title on September 22, 2026. The title filter is a near-exact string match, so the count is a floor: a variant it does not list is a person it misses. Most are at very small companies; 73,701 are at Software Development companies.
Can I build a list of Series A founders?
Yes, in two steps. Company Search returned 2,607 US-headquartered Software Development companies at Series A on September 22, 2026. Save them, then search their domains for founder titles. In the app, the funding-stage filter in People Search does it in one step.
Is there a SaaS founders email list?
Filter this list by the Software Development industry, which returns 73,701 US founder profiles, or start from a set of SaaS companies and search their domains. The eight industries counted here cover about a quarter of US founder profiles, so the company route misses fewer people.
How much does a founders email list cost to build?
Search is free. You pay 1 credit for each verified work email found and 10 for each direct dial found, and nothing for a lookup that finds nothing.
Is it legal to email founders cold?
In the US, B2B cold email is legal under CAN-SPAM with accurate headers, a physical address and a working opt-out. Canada's CASL requires consent in most cases, and the UK and EU generally rely on legitimate interest.
Is it legal to buy an email list?
In the United States, buying a B2B email list is legal, and CAN-SPAM governs how you use it: accurate headers, a valid physical postal address and an opt-out you honor within 10 business days. In the UK and the EU the GDPR covers the personal data in the list, so you need a lawful basis such as legitimate interest, and you must tell each person where you got their data, at the latest in your first email. Many bought lists cannot show where their data came from. Canada's CASL requires consent for most commercial email, which a bought list rarely gives you. Many email platforms also ban purchased lists in their terms. Cleanlist does not sell lists: you build one from search and verify each email when you enrich it. This is general information, not legal advice.