How well does a venture capital firm's stated sector focus match where they actually invest capital?

Key takeaways

• The median VC firm holds 74% of its classified portfolio in the sector groups its website names, against 27% expected from the average VC mix (2,743 firms worldwide, September 2026).
• US-based VC firms give software & infrastructure 20.2% of their stated focus, about twice its 10.4% share of 4,079 Form D rounds by VC-backed startups (January 2024 to June 2026); in 7 of 11 groups the two differ by less than 1 point.
• Health & life sciences gets 24.3% of US-based firms' stated focus, less than its 29.2% of Form D rounds (January 2024 to June 2026), which over-represent health; against portfolios weighted the same way, slightly under (by 2.3 to 2.5 points).
• Fintech shows no sign of crowding among US-based firms (11.1% of focus, 10.5% of Form D rounds); worldwide, firms' 17.3% fintech focus matches their own portfolio links (17.0%, September 2026).
• Industrials & deep tech rose from 5.5% of VC-backed Form D rounds in 2019–2021 to 9.7% in January 2024 to June 2026, the largest gain of any sector group; consumer fell from 13.0% to 9.7%.

For founders seeking less crowded sectors and anyone checking a VC's marketing against its portfolio: where stated focus, portfolios and rounds agree, where they split, and which results are too fragile to use.

Do VC firms invest in the sectors their websites name?

Largely, yes. Among 2,743 VC firms worldwide with at least 10 classified portfolio companies, the median firm holds 74% of them in the sector groups its website names, against 27% expected from the average VC mix.

Capital is not measured firm by firm: portfolio lists carry no amounts, and Form D filings do not name investors. The comparison uses portfolio holdings and the round mix, across three views:

• Say (worldwide): the sectors firms name on their websites, September 2026.
• Invest (worldwide): the companies firms list, undated.
• Money (SEC filings): Form D filings by VC-backed startups, about 96% with a US address. Form D is the short notice a company files with the SEC (the US securities regulator) when it sells shares privately; it shows how much was raised and when.

Match share is the part of a firm's classified portfolio inside the sector groups it names; expected share is what those groups hold across all VC portfolios. The median is the middle value, and 94.0% of firms beat their expected share.

Why is match share alone misleading?

Naming many sectors inflates the score: firms naming 7 to 11 groups match a median 91.7%, but 80.7% would be expected anyway, a lift of 7.6 percentage points.

To be fair, a 74% match does not prove firms keep their word. Website and portfolio list describe the same firm in 2026, and some focus text summarises past deals, so this is an association, not intent.

Which sectors get more VC attention than funding rounds?

Software & infrastructure. Among 1,514 US-based VC firms that name a sector, it takes 20.2% of stated focus but only 10.4% of 4,079 Form D rounds by VC-backed startups from January 2024 to June 2026.

Rounds are counted, not dollars, which a few huge filings dominate. For 7 of 11 groups, focus and round share differ by less than 1 point; across all 11, the two mixes move closely together (a correlation of 0.88, where 1.0 is a perfect match). Both results count each firm once; counting every firm–sector pair instead gives 5 of 11 and 0.76.

Health, industrials & deep tech and real estate & construction sit below their round share. For these three and software, the gap's 95% confidence interval (its likely range) stays clear of zero.

Is fintech over-crowded?

Not among US-based firms: 11.1% of stated focus against 10.5% of rounds is too small a gap to separate from chance. Worldwide, firms state 17.3% fintech and their own portfolio links are 17.0% fintech. That shows consistency; with no worldwide round data, it is not a crowding test.

Why does health look under-stated?

Against Form D rounds, partly because they over-represent health: SEC-matched portfolio startups are 26.2% health against 17.8% for the rest. Against what US-based firms hold, health is slightly under-stated when both sides are weighted the same way. Counting each firm once (1,373 firms with classified holdings), firms state 23.8% health and hold a mean 26.0%, a gap of 2.3 points before rounding (likely range 1.3 to 3.2); weighting both sides by portfolio size gives 2.5.

Which sub-sectors are crowded, and which have few VCs per round?

This data cannot say firmly. Per Form D round, crypto / blockchain and cloud & networking rank in the top quarter among US-based VC firms and biotech and proptech in the bottom quarter, but Form D coverage is uneven: 5.1% of crypto startups in VC portfolios file Form D, against 17.5% of biotech.

Per startup that US-based firms hold, crypto falls to mid-table, biotech ranks 17th to 20th of 25, and proptech is last on one count but 18th on the other; neither ranking counts investors per deal.

Why are sub-sector figures ranges?

78.4% of the 39,108 sector tags on VC firms come from a single word or phrase expanded to several sub-sectors, so counts run from specific wording (low end) to any tag (high end). Among US-based firms, crypto's share of stated fintech focus is 15.1 to 50.7 points above its 14.5% share of fintech rounds, or from 5.0 points if firm–sub-sector pairs are counted instead; low crypto Form D filing inflates any gap.

Which startup sectors are gaining or losing share of VC-backed rounds?

Industrials & deep tech is gaining most: its share of Form D rounds rose from 5.5% in 2019–2021 to 9.7% from January 2024 to June 2026. Consumer, e-commerce and HR tech lost share.

These shares show where startups raised, not what VCs say.

Within industrials, space, aerospace and defense nearly doubled (2.2% to 4.4%) and semiconductors & hardware rose from 0.8% to 1.9%. E-commerce & D2C fell from 4.4% to 2.4% and HR / future of work from 3.1% to 1.8%.

Which changes are borderline?

Climate & energy (4.6% to 6.2%) and education (2.5% to 1.5%) fail a stricter test that treats each period's companies as a separate sample; among first Form D offerings, the consumer decline is borderline too. AI models & infrastructure (0.83% to 1.67%) and clean energy & storage (2.46% to 3.68%) sit at the threshold after adjusting for testing many sub-sectors. Treat these as possible trends, not findings.

How was this measured?

By comparing three descriptions of venture capital by sector, each as shares of its own base (VC Catalog's database, October 8, 2026).

Sectors follow VC Catalog's taxonomy of 11 groups and 44 sub-sectors; each startup counts once, in its primary sector, and the 2,545 generalist firms are kept apart.

A Form D round is one offering in the SEC record, dated by first sale, with no round type or investors; Wikipedia-sourced rounds are not used. It counts if more than $0 was sold, it was first sold and filed by June 30, 2026, and the database rates it reliable, which drops offerings recorded above $2B, such as Databricks and World View.

Statistical tests check whether a difference could be chance: intervals re-draw firms or startups at random many times, and changes over time keep each company's rounds together, adjusted for testing 11 groups or 38 sub-sectors at once. "Borderline" means a result passes some versions of the test but not others.

What are the limits of this data?

The data is a sample, stated focus has no history, and sub-sector and borderline results are fragile.

Bottom line

Stated focus is a good guide to a firm's own portfolio and, for most sectors, to the round mix.

• Most firms' portfolios match their stated sectors (median 74% against 27% expected), as an association, not proof of intent.
• Among US-based firms, software & infrastructure gets about twice the attention its share of Form D rounds suggests; health is under-stated against those health-heavy rounds and slightly under against portfolios weighted alike (2.3 to 2.5 points).
• Fintech shows no sign of crowding among US-based firms; worldwide, fintech focus matches firms' own portfolios.
• Sub-sector crowding ranks move with uneven Form D coverage, so they are not reliable on their own.
• Industrials & deep tech is the clearest riser in VC-backed rounds and consumer the clearest decline; education, climate, AI infrastructure and clean energy are borderline.

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