Find Startup Founder Email Addresses
Search by job title, company or industry, and Cleanlist AI looks up the work email and phone number of each person. On our 500-lead benchmark it returned 98% verified work emails and 85% phone numbers.
Cleanlist AI People Search. The sentence "Founders from Techstars or Antler with an engineering background, running 1-50 person pre-seed or seed fintechs that raised in the last 6 months, in the UK or Ireland. Skip anyone in my lists." becomes 9 filters (Job title: Founder, Co-founder, Past function: Engineering, Industry: Financial Services, Company headcount: 1-10, 11-50, Startup programs: Techstars, Antler, Funding stage: Pre-Seed, Seed, Most recent funding after: Apr 2026, Country / region: United Kingdom, Ireland, Exclude people already in my Cleanlist: In any of my lists), previews about 70 people and adds them to the list UK and Ireland fintech founders.
10,000+ users, from founders to full sales teams
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How does Cleanlist AI find startup founder email addresses?
Cleanlist AI solves the founder email problem by querying data sources that specialize in startup ecosystems alongside traditional B2B databases. The waterfall asks 25+ providers in sequence and stops at the first deliverable email. Each result says whether it is a personal or a company address, so you know which inbox you are writing to. Every address also gets a live SMTP check, which catches a pre-pivot domain that no longer receives mail.
Why this is hard to do by hand
Crunchbase counts over 4 million startup founders worldwide, and only 38% have a business email you can find with conventional B2B tools. Investors, service providers and enterprise sellers all want to reach them. Many early founders run the company from a personal Gmail or iCloud address, others change domains after a pivot or rebrand, and some keep their email off the internet on purpose, because raising money brings a flood of vendor pitches.
Why early-stage founders are hard to find in standard B2B tools
ZoomInfo and Apollo are built around mid-market and enterprise companies with settled corporate email domains. Coverage drops at pre-seed and seed, where founders often run on personal email, use Google Workspace on a domain that doesn't match the product name, or haven't been picked up by commercial data sources yet. No single provider covers that segment well. Cleanlist AI asks 25+ providers in sequence and stops at the first deliverable email, so a founder missing from one source can still turn up in the next, and a lookup that finds nothing costs nothing.
What a lookup costs
Each lookup walks 25+ providers in cost order, and you're charged once for what comes back: 1 credit for a verified work email, 10 for a phone number, 11 for both. Validation is 0.5 and AI qualification is 5. A lookup that finds nothing is free, and the whole team pays from one wallet.
- Verified work emails25 leads searched23 × 123
- Phone numbersVerified before anyone calls18 × 10180
- Qualification agentFit score with reasons25 × 5125
- 25+Providers queried in cost order on a single lookup
- 98%Verified work emails on our 500-lead benchmark
- 85%Phone numbers found on that same benchmark
- 0Credits for a lookup that finds nothing
How it works.
- 01
Search by company, industry or headcount
Enter a company name, or filter People Search by industry, headcount and location to find founders at the right companies.
- 02
Filter for founder and co-founder titles
Cleanlist AI matches Founder, Co-founder, CEO & Founder, Technical Co-founder and Founding Partner, however the startup is set up.
- 03
See personal vs company email
Each result says whether the email is on the company domain or a personal one (Gmail, iCloud), so you can set your tone.
- 04
Add startup context
Each result comes with employee count, industry and location. For the last funding round, the accelerator batch or what the company builds, add a Smart Agent column; it researches each company and writes the answer into the row.
- 05
One lookup or a whole batch
Look up one founder, or upload a CSV of companies and run them as a batch. Export a CSV or push the results to your CRM.
What you get.
Verified work emails
Cleanlist AI checks each email for deliverability before it comes back, so your rep doesn't waste a send on a dead inbox.
Search by company or industry
Filter by company name, domain, industry, location or employee count.
Phone numbers too
Mobile and office numbers that ring the person's own phone, at 10 credits per number found.
Work contacts only
Cleanlist AI returns work contact data for B2B sales research. It isn't a people finder for private individuals.
14-day Pro trial
Run your first list on Pro: 14 days, 250 credits, 3 seats.
Manual process vs Cleanlist AI.
| Feature | Manual | Cleanlist AI |
|---|---|---|
| Early-stage startup coverage | Very poor (pre-Series A gaps) | Startup sources inside the 25+ provider waterfall |
| Personal vs company email detection | No distinction | Labeled on every result |
| Post-pivot domain accuracy | Stale (old domain stays in DB) | Live SMTP check catches a dead domain |
| Accelerator background | Manual search on accelerator sites | A Research skill column can look it up |
| Bulk founder search | Manual LinkedIn/Crunchbase browsing | Upload a CSV, run it as one batch |
| Cost efficiency | $50-200/mo for Crunchbase + data tool | $0 Free plan, or $49 a seat a month for 750 credits |
How accurate is Cleanlist AI's data?
Cleanlist AI returned 98% verified work emails and 85% phone numbers on our 500-lead benchmark, pulling from 25+ data providers. Each lookup stops at the first deliverable result, meaning a verified or likely-valid email.
What do I get when I sign up?
A 14-day Pro trial: 250 credits, 3 seats, and every Pro feature. After it, the Free plan gives you 50 credits a month. A verified work email costs 1 credit, a phone number 10, and a miss nothing.
What data providers does Cleanlist AI use?
Cleanlist AI runs a waterfall across 25+ B2B data providers. For each record it asks one, moves to the next when that one has no match, and stops at the first deliverable result.
Can I connect my CRM?
Yes. HubSpot and Salesforce sync both ways on the Pro and Enterprise plans, and Salesloft and Lemlist take a one-way push. You can also upload a CSV, or use the REST API from Pro.
Is this data GDPR compliant?
Cleanlist AI returns work contact data for B2B sales research and isn't a people finder for private individuals. Whether your outreach meets GDPR depends on how you use the data, so check your program with counsel.
Why do so many startup founders use personal email for business?
At pre-seed and seed, many founders haven't set up company email yet, or the domain changed after a pivot. Coverage is much thinner at those stages than at Series B and later. Cleanlist AI labels each email as personal or company, so you know which inbox you are writing to.
How do I find a founder's email if their company recently rebranded?
Search by the new company name or domain. Cleanlist AI's waterfall asks 25+ providers for the founder's current email, and a live SMTP check shows whether the address receives mail. An address on a dead pre-rebrand domain (say companyA.com after a move to companyB.com) fails that check, so you don't send to it.
What is the best approach for cold emailing a startup founder?
Short and specific. A 2025 First Round Capital survey found founders are 3.4x more likely to reply when the email names a challenge or metric that fits their stage. Keep it under 80 words and send it to a verified address; mail to a guessed one never arrives.
Describe the job once. An agent runs it every week.
Clu turns one sentence into an agent. It searches 1B+ profiles, finds verified emails and phone numbers across 25+ providers, adds the people to your sequence and posts each run to Slack.
Weekly ICP outbound
Built by Clu from: “Every week, find 500 new people who match my ICP, get their emails and phones, and add them to Series B outbound.”
- Searched 1B+ profiles for new ICP matches500 foundPeople Search
- Ran the waterfall across 25+ providers487 emails · 412 phonesWaterfall
- Verified every email and phoneSMTP + catch-allVerification
- Added them to Series B outbound500 peopleSequences
- Posted the run to #pipelineSlackAgents
Friday 4:52 PM15 replies · 5 calls booked
Everything in the 14-day Pro trial
- Clu and agentsDescribe the job in one sentence. Clu builds the agent, runs it on a schedule or a CRM trigger and posts every run to Slack.
- People and Company SearchFind your buyers in 1B+ profiles from one sentence. Searching costs 0 credits.
- Waterfall enrichmentAsk 25+ providers in order and stop at the first verified email or phone number. 98% verified work emails and 85% phone numbers on a 500-lead benchmark.
- Email verificationRun SMTP and catch-all checks on every address before it reaches a sequence, at half a credit an email.
- ICP scoringScore every lead 0 to 100 against your ICP, with the reasons written down. The Research and Qualification skills do the digging.
- SequencesSend email from your reps' own inboxes, with call tasks. A reply stops the sequence. Sending costs 0 credits.
- CRM syncTwo-way sync with HubSpot, Salesforce and Pipedrive. Push finished lists to Outreach, Salesloft and Lemlist.
- Chrome extensionGet a verified email and phone number in one click on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Salesforce and HubSpot.
- MCP and APIRun the same search and waterfall from Claude or ChatGPT with 36 MCP tools, or from your own code with the REST API.
Agents that run this job
- Account briefsWrites a short, sourced brief on each new target account every Monday and sends it to the account owner.
- Lookalikes of best customersFinds new companies that share your best customers' industry, size and funding stage, and the buyers at each one.
- Weekly ICP leadsEvery Monday, finds new people who match your ICP, checks their work emails and posts the verified ones in Slack.
14 days of Pro, free: 250 credits, 3 seats, agents, Sequences and Clu in Slack. Then Free at 50 credits a month, or Starter at $49 and Pro at $89 a seat a month.
Hand the job to an agent.
Upload a CSV or connect HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, and run it on your own data today.
14 days of Pro, free.
Get 14 days of Pro, free.
250 credits and 3 seats. Sign up with your work email for 100 more.