🧭 NFX Signal Investor API - find investors, check sizes, and VC firms

The NFX Signal Investor API turns Signal by NFX investor lists into clean, structured JSON. This API pulls thousands of venture investors and VC firms with their check sizes, stages, sectors, and locations, so figuring out how to find investors for a fundraise becomes a query instead of an afternoon of copy and paste. Optionally enrich every firm with LinkedIn and Crunchbase data in the same run.

Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to NFX. It reads the same public investor lists any visitor can browse.

What the NFX Signal Investor API returns

• Investors with name, role, firm, check size (min / target / max), investment locations, headshot, and a link to the profile.
• VC firms attached to each list, with a link to the firm profile.
• The list catalog: every public investor list published on Signal by NFX, with its slug, stage, sector, and investor count, so you can see the whole venture capital data set before you pull any of it.
• Optional firm enrichment: LinkedIn firmographics (industry, size, HQ, followers) and Crunchbase funding data (funding, investors, headcount, rank, status).

Use cases: how to find investors that fit your round

• Build a target list for a raise. Filter by stage and sector, then sort by check size so you only pitch investors who write your number.
• Find pre seed investors and early stage investors. The catalog carries pre-seed, seed, Series A, and Series B lists across roughly 350 sectors and geographies.
• Pull a list of VC firms in one vertical. Firms mode returns the firm directory for any sector list, ready for a CRM import.
• Enrich an investor CRM. Add firmographics and funding history to firms you already track, in a single pass.
• Map a market. Compare which firms show up across AI, FinTech, and climate lists to see who is actually active.
• Watch a list over time. Schedule a monthly run and diff the output to catch new entrants.

Input parameters

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
mode	select	no	investors	investors, firms, or lists.
listSlugs	array	for investors and firms	none	List slugs to pull, e.g. advertising-seed. Discover slugs with lists mode.
maxItems	integer	no	0	Cap on rows returned. 0 means no limit. Deduplicated by person or firm.
pageSize	integer	no	50	Investors requested per page. The source may cap this; pagination still walks the full list.
includeFirms	boolean	no	false	In investors mode, also emit one deduplicated row per firm.
stage	string	no	none	Stage filter for lists mode: pre_seed, seed, series_a, series_b.
locationId	string	no	none	Location tag ID filter for lists mode.
enrichWithLinkedIn	boolean	no	false	Add LinkedIn company data to each firm. Charged per firm enriched.
enrichWithCrunchbase	boolean	no	false	Add Crunchbase data to each firm. Charged per firm enriched.

Output fields

One row per record, with result_type telling you which kind it is (investor, firm, list, or error).

Field	Description
name, firstName, lastName	Investor name.
position	Role at the firm, e.g. managing_partner.
minInvestment / targetInvestment / maxInvestment	Check size in US dollars.
firmName, firmSlug, firmUrl	The investor's firm and its profile link.
personUrl, personSlug, headshotUrl	Investor profile link and photo.
investmentLocations	Geographies the investor focuses on.
listMemberships	Other lists this investor appears on.
sourceListSlug, sourceListStage, sourceListVertical	Which list the row came from.
slug, listUrl, investorCount, stage, vertical	List catalog fields (lists mode).
linkedinIndustry, linkedinSize, linkedinFollowers, linkedinUrl	LinkedIn enrichment, when enabled.
crunchbaseRank, crunchbaseEmployees, crunchbaseStatus, crunchbaseUrl	Crunchbase enrichment, when enabled.

Example output

{
  "result_type": "investor",
  "name": "Brendan Wallace",
  "personUrl": "https://signal.nfx.com/investors/brendan-wallace",
  "position": "managing_partner",
  "minInvestment": 10000000,
  "targetInvestment": 12500000,
  "maxInvestment": 25000000,
  "firmName": "Fifth Wall Ventures",
  "firmUrl": "https://signal.nfx.com/firms/fifth-wall-ventures",
  "investmentLocations": ["Los Angeles, California"],
  "sourceListSlug": "advertising-seed",
  "linkedinSize": "11-50 employees",
  "crunchbaseRank": 290,
  "crunchbaseStatus": "active"
}

The Output tab ships four ready-made views: Investors, Firms, Enriched, and List catalog, with clickable profile links, headshots, and formatted check sizes.

🔌 Integrations: keep your investor list fresh automatically

A one-off export goes stale the week you build it. Wire this in as a pipeline instead:

• Tasks and Schedules. Save a mode plus list slugs as a Task, schedule it monthly, and diff each run to catch new investors entering a sector.
• Google Sheets and Airtable. Push the dataset straight into the sheet your fundraise CRM already reads.
• Supabase or Postgres. Upsert on the investor profile link to build a deduplicated venture capital database that grows every run.
• Make and Zapier. Trigger on run completion to alert Slack when a target firm appears on a new list.
• Webhooks. Fire your own endpoint on ACTOR.RUN.SUCCEEDED and pull the dataset by ID.
• MCP. Let an AI agent call this directly, described in the section below.

How to get started

1. Run lists mode first to see every list, its slug, sector, stage, and investor count.
2. Pass one or more listSlugs in investors or firms mode.
3. Turn on enrichment only when you need firmographics; it costs more and takes longer.

View on Apify Store

Prefer to build with an AI coding tool? Claude Code (free trial) and Claude Cowork (free trial) can call this API for you.

🔌 Use this API from Claude (MCP)

This Actor is an MCP server, so AI agents can discover and run it directly. Point your MCP client at:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=actors,docs,johnvc/nfx-signal-investor-api

Setup walkthrough:

More on the Apify MCP integration: https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp

💸 Pay per run with crypto (x402)

The NFX Signal Investor API supports agentic payments via the x402 protocol. AI agents and MCP clients can pay for runs in USDC (on Base) with no Apify account or API token needed: point your agent at the Apify MCP server and it can discover, pay for, and run this Actor autonomously. Read the Apify x402 announcement for details.

Pricing

Low-cost and pay-per-result: you are billed only for the investor, firm, or list rows actually returned, plus a small per-firm fee when you switch on LinkedIn or Crunchbase enrichment. No monthly rental, no per-page blocks. If a firm cannot be resolved, you are not charged for it. The Store card shows current rates.

💡 Example tasks

Ready-to-run examples, each a live landing page you can open and run as-is.

Find Investors for Your Startup by Stage and Check Size

Build a target list ordered by the check size each investor actually writes.

List of VC Firms in San Francisco Bay Area

The firm directory for the largest geography on Signal, ready for a CRM import.

Pre Seed Investors List With Check Sizes

Pre-seed investors across FinTech, SaaS, and AI in one run.

Crunchbase Alternative for Investor and VC Firm Data

Investor-first data with optional Crunchbase enrichment on each firm.

VC Database Export by Sector and Stage

The full catalog of 349 lists across 103 sectors and four stages.

Export Signal NFX Investor Lists to JSON or CSV

Turn any public list into structured rows, no login required.

Track New Investors Joining a VC List Each Month

Schedule a monthly run and diff the output to catch new entrants.

按行业和轮次导出风险投资人名单

按行业与轮次导出风险投资人数据，含投资金额区间与主页链接。

旧金山湾区风险投资机构名录导出

导出投资旧金山湾区的风险投资机构名录，适合融资研究与名单整理。

🔗 Related Tools

Chain these together and the investor list becomes a full company intelligence pipeline.

• Crunchbase Company API - funding, investors, headcount, and status per company. This is the same source behind the enrichWithCrunchbase toggle, and useful on its own when you already have a company list.
• PitchBook Company API - valuation, cap table signals, competitors, and financials for private companies.
• LinkedIn Company API - firmographics by company name or URL, powering the enrichWithLinkedIn toggle.
• Startup Investors Data Scraper - a standing database of investment firms with contacts, when you want firms rather than list membership.
• VentureRadar Company Discovery API - emerging-company profiles and accelerator signals for the other side of the table.

Worth knowing before you pick: several cheap Signal scrapers on the Store, such as powerai/signal-listing-scraper, currently sit at a one star rating with no firm enrichment path, which is the gap this API is built to close.

FAQ

How do I find investors for my startup with this API?

Run lists mode to see the catalog, pick the lists that match your sector and stage, then run investors mode on those slugs. Sort the output by targetInvestment and you have a target list ordered by the check size each investor actually writes.

Is this an API or a web scraper?

Both descriptions fit. It is a web scraper in the sense that it reads public pages rather than a licensed feed, and it is delivered as an API: structured JSON, pay per result, callable from code, no browser automation to maintain on your side. See Wikipedia on web scraping for the general technique.

Can I use an MCP server to run this from an AI assistant?

Yes. Point any MCP client at https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=actors,docs,johnvc/nfx-signal-investor-api and the agent can discover the input schema and run it. That is how a research agent can answer investor questions with live data instead of memory.

How do I schedule this and integrate it with other apps?

Save your input as a Task, then attach a Schedule, and connect the dataset to Sheets, Airtable, Supabase, Make, or Zapier. See the Integrations section above for the pipeline patterns.

Do I need an NFX Signal login?

No. The investor lists this reads are the public ones on signal.nfx.com, so no account, cookie, or token is required.

How do I find a list of VC firms in one sector?

Use firms mode with that sector's list slug. It returns the deduplicated firm directory for the list. Turn on enrichment to add size, industry, and funding to each firm.

Where do I find pre seed and early stage investors?

The catalog includes pre-seed, seed, Series A, and Series B lists per sector. Filter lists mode with stage set to pre_seed or seed, then pull the slugs that match your vertical.

Is this a Crunchbase or PitchBook alternative?

It is a complement, not a replacement. Those platforms are company-centric databases with licensed coverage; this returns investor-centric list data, including check sizes that company databases usually do not publish. Many people run both, which is why the Crunchbase and PitchBook enrichment paths exist here. For background on the sector, see venture capital on Wikipedia.

How many investors can I pull in one run?

A single list can hold thousands. The Actor walks the whole list by cursor, so use maxItems to cap a run or leave it at 0 for everything.

Why are some check size fields empty?

Not every investor publishes a range. Those fields come back empty rather than estimated, because a guessed check size is worse than a missing one.

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🌐 About Alpha OSINT

This Actor is part of Alpha OSINT, a toolset of financial and operations data sources and APIs. For support or requests for this actor, please start a ticket directly on our support page.

Last Updated: 2026.08.20