NFX Signal & Mercury VC Investor Database

Scrape VC investor data from NFX Signal and the Mercury investor database. Supports searching, listing, and fetching full investor profiles.

🛑 Even with a proxy, the error "Unauthorized: Must be signed into Signal" will eventually be triggered. See token procedure.

😶‍🌫️ We strongly recommend using queries directly. All results have a minimum of 1,000 records or more (empty).

Quick Start — Just Paste a URL

The simplest way to use this actor is to set query to a URL. Source, operation, and parameters are auto-detected:

// Fetch an investor profile
{ "query": "https://signal.nfx.com/investors/shaun-abrahamson", "nfxToken": "YOUR_TOKEN" }

// Fetch an investor list
{ "query": "https://signal.nfx.com/investor-lists/top-who-were-founders-investors", "nfxToken": "YOUR_TOKEN" }

// Fetch Mercury investor database (with filters in the URL)
{ "query": "https://mercury.com/investor-database?perPage=All&sortBy=checkSize_desc&industries=SaaS,AI%2FML&stages=Pre-seed", "mercuryCookies": "YOUR_COOKIES" }

Plain text in query is treated as an NFX search:

{ "query": "Scout", "nfxToken": "YOUR_TOKEN" }

Conflict rule: When query is provided it always wins — if you also set source or operation manually and they disagree, a warning is logged and the query-resolved values are used. To avoid confusion, either use query or set source/operation manually — not both.

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Input Reference

Routing fields (pick one approach)

Field	Type	Description
query	string	Easiest. Paste a URL or search text. Auto-detects source, operation, and parameters.
source	"nfx" | "mercury"	Manual data-source selection. Required if query is not set.
operation	"search" | "categories" | "list" | "profile"	NFX operation. Required for NFX when query is not set. Ignored for Mercury.

Operation-specific fields (only needed in manual mode)

Field	Used by	Description
searchTerm	NFX search	Name or firm to search, e.g. "Scout".
slug	NFX list	List slug, e.g. "https://signal.nfx.com/investor-lists/top-who-were-founders-investors".
personSlug	NFX profile	Person slug, e.g. "shaun-abrahamson".
stage	NFX categories	Filter by stage: "seed", "pre_seed", "series_a".
locationId	NFX categories	Filter by location tag ID.

Pagination & throttling

Field	Type	Default	Description
maxResults	integer	100	Max investor records to fetch (list & search).
waitTimeBetweenRequests	integer	1500	Delay in ms between paginated requests.

Authentication (secrets)

Field	Source	Description
nfxToken	NFX	JWT Bearer token from signal.nfx.com. Open DevTools → Network → copy the authorization: Bearer … value. Required for all NFX operations.
mercuryCookies	Mercury	Session cookies from mercury.com. Open DevTools → Network → copy the cookie header value. Required for Mercury.

Mercury-specific

Field	Type	Description
mercuryFilters	object	{ "perPage": "All", "sortBy": "checkSize_desc", "industries": ["SaaS","AI/ML"], "stages": ["Pre-seed"] }

Proxy

Field	Type	Description
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify proxy config. Recommended for production runs.

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Input / Output Examples

1. NFX Search

Search for investors or firms by name.

INPUT.json:

{
    "source": "nfx",
    "operation": "search",
    "searchTerm": "Scout",
    "nfxToken": "eyJhbGciOi…",
    "maxResults": 10,
    "waitTimeBetweenRequests": 1500
}

Or equivalently with just query:

{
    "query": "Scout",
    "nfxToken": "eyJhbGciOi…"
}

Output (dataset — one row per result):

{
    "_type": "investor",
    "id": "9059",
    "person": {
        "id": "3920",
        "slug": "david-dufresne",
        "name": "David Dufresne",
        "first_name": "David",
        "last_name": "Dufresne"
    },
    "firm": {
        "id": "1135",
        "name": "Scout"
    },
    "image_urls": ["https://signal-api.nfx.com/rails/active_storage/…"]
}

{
    "_type": "firm",
    "name": "Scout",
    "slug": "panache-ventures",
    "id": "1135"
}

---

2. NFX Categories

Get all investor list categories (optionally filtered by stage / location).

INPUT.json:

{
    "source": "nfx",
    "operation": "categories",
    "stage": "seed",
    "nfxToken": "eyJhbGciOi…"
}

Output:

{
    "_type": "category",
    "id": "1",
    "slug": "advertising-seed",
    "investor_count": 716,
    "stage": "seed",
    "location": null,
    "vertical": {
        "id": "1",
        "display_name": "Advertising"
    }
}

---

3. NFX Investor List (paginated)

Fetch all investors from a specific list. Automatically paginates until maxResults is reached.

INPUT.json:

{
    "source": "nfx",
    "operation": "list",
    "slug": "top-who-were-founders-investors",
    "maxResults": 200,
    "nfxToken": "eyJhbGciOi…",
    "waitTimeBetweenRequests": 1500
}

Or with URL:

{
    "query": "https://signal.nfx.com/investor-lists/https://signal.nfx.com/investor-lists/top-who-were-founders-investors",
    "nfxToken": "eyJhbGciOi…",
    "maxResults": 200
}

Output (one row per investor):

{
    "_type": "list_investor",
    "_listSlug": "top-who-were-founders-investors",
    "id": "12074",
    "person": {
        "id": "15719",
        "first_name": "Josh",
        "last_name": "Youth",
        "name": "Josh Youth",
        "slug": "josh-youth"
    },
    "position": "managing_partner",
    "min_investment": "100000",
    "max_investment": "1000000",
    "target_investment": "500000",
    "firm": {
        "id": "7320",
        "name": "Yoko",
        "slug": "yoko"
    },
    "investment_locations": [
        { "id": "24410", "display_name": "Panama" }
    ],
    "investor_lists": [
        { "id": "28", "stage_name": "Seed", "slug": "hardware-seed", "vertical": { "display_name": "Hardware" } },
        { "id": "31", "stage_name": "Seed", "slug": "impact-seed", "vertical": { "display_name": "Impact" } }
    ]
}

---

4. NFX Investor Profile

Fetch a full investor profile including positions, education, investments on record, network, and media links.

INPUT.json:

{
    "query": "https://signal.nfx.com/investors/shaun-abrahamson",
    "nfxToken": "eyJhbGciOi…"
}

Or manually:

{
    "source": "nfx",
    "operation": "profile",
    "personSlug": "shaun-abrahamson",
    "nfxToken": "eyJhbGciOi…"
}

Output:

{
    "_type": "profile",
    "id": "11434",
    "claimed": true,
    "leads_rounds": "0",
    "person": {
        "slug": "shaun-abrahamson",
        "name": "Shaun Abrahamson",
        "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunabe/",
        "twitter_url": "https://www.twitter.com/shaunabe",
        "roles": ["VC", "Investor"],
        "url": "https://thirdsphere.com"
    },
    "position": "managing_partner",
    "headline": "Managing Partner at Third Sphere",
    "min_investment": "250000",
    "max_investment": "1000000",
    "target_investment": "500000",
    "stages": [
        { "display_name": "Pre-seed" },
        { "display_name": "Seed" }
    ],
    "location": { "display_name": "Los Angeles, California" },
    "firm": {
        "name": "Third Sphere",
        "slug": "third-sphere"
    },
    "areas_of_interest_freeform": "We know that climate is about more than carbon…",
    "vote_count": 27,
    "investor_lists": [
        { "slug": "robotics-pre-seed", "stage_name": "Pre-seed", "vertical": { "display_name": "Robotics" } }
    ],
    "investments_on_record": { "record_count": 0, "edges": [] },
    "investor_profile_funding_rounds": { "record_count": 0, "edges": [] },
    "network_list_investor_profiles": { "list_type": "COINVESTORS", "edges": ["…"] }
}

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5. Mercury Investor Database

Scrape the Mercury investor database. Filters can be passed inline or extracted from a URL.

INPUT.json:

{
    "source": "mercury",
    "mercuryCookies": "_SESSION=abc123…; pi=xyz…",
    "mercuryFilters": {
        "perPage": "All",
        "sortBy": "checkSize_desc",
        "industries": ["Enterprise", "SaaS", "AI/ML"],
        "stages": ["Pre-seed", "Seed"]
    },
    "waitTimeBetweenRequests": 2000
}

Or with URL (filters extracted automatically):

{
    "query": "https://mercury.com/investor-database?perPage=All&sortBy=checkSize_desc&industries=SaaS,AI%2FML&stages=Pre-seed",
    "mercuryCookies": "_SESSION=abc123…; pi=xyz…"
}

Output (one row per investor):

{
    "_source": "mercury",
    "firmName": "Example Capital",
    "name": "Jane Smith",
    "checkSize": "$100K - $500K",
    "stages": ["Pre-seed", "Seed"],
    "industries": ["SaaS", "AI/ML"],
    "linkedinUrl": "https://linkedin.com/in/janesmith"
}

Mercury output fields depend on what Mercury returns; the above is representative. If cookies are expired or the page format changes, the actor returns a diagnostic object with _note.

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How It Works

1. User-Agent rotation — Each HTTP request uses a randomly selected browser user-agent string (pool of 10).
2. Request throttling — Configurable waitTimeBetweenRequests delay between paginated requests.
3. Proxy support — Set proxyConfiguration to route through Apify residential proxies.
4. Auto-pagination — NFX list fetches page after page until maxResults is reached.
5. URL auto-detection — Paste any signal.nfx.com or mercury.com URL and the actor figures out what to do.

Getting Your Tokens

NFX Signal Bearer Token

1. Go to signal.nfx.com and log in.
2. Open DevTools (F12) → Network tab.
3. Click any page that loads investor data.
4. Find a request to signal-api.nfx.com/graphql.
5. Copy the authorization header value (starts with Bearer eyJ…). Paste the part after Bearer .

Mercury Cookies

1. Go to mercury.com/investor-database and log in.
2. Open DevTools (F12) → Network tab.
3. Find any request to mercury.com.
4. Copy the full cookie header value.