How Would You Fund It? works

The deck

76 pitches from real startups and from a televised pitch show (11 of them). Each pitch is written from facts that were public at the time: the year, the stage, what the founders had and what they asked for. The name and anything that would give it away are left out until you decide. Some famous companies are still recognisable, and the busts are just as famous.

Each outcome is one of three:

• 🦄 Breakout: a $1 billion+ outcome, meaning an acquisition, an IPO, or a private valuation of at least $1 billion.
• ✅ Success: acquired, or a lasting business with sizeable sales, below $1 billion.
• 💥 Bust: shut down, bankrupt, or sold off for a fraction of the money put in.

Every outcome links to its public source (mostly Wikipedia articles that cite the original reporting). The full list, with spoilers.

Scoring

A call is right if you invested in a breakout or a success, or passed on a bust. Your score is the number of right calls. In the share grid, 🦄 means you backed a breakout, ✅ is any other right call and ❌ is a wrong one. On TV pitches you also see how the show's investors did on the same companies.

The daily challenge deals the same five pitches to everyone, chosen from the date in UTC (daily #1 was 2026-10-25). Each cycle through the deck uses every pitch once before it reshuffles. Practice mode deals ten at random. Your results stay in your browser: there is no account and nothing is uploaded.

Why this exists

Picking startups is a skill with slow feedback: outcomes take years. Pitches whose outcomes are already public let you test your judgment in minutes, and notice how often well-funded, famous ideas went bust while dismissed ones broke out. Every company in the deck raised money or got on TV, so professional investors said yes to plenty of the busts too.

Corrections and embeds

Spotted a wrong fact or a better source? Open a public correction. New outcomes and new pitches are added on a regular schedule.

Put today's pitch on your site: <iframe src="../embed/daily/" width="100%" height="200" style="border:0;max-width:480px" title="Would You Fund It? today"></iframe>

A game about past startups, for fun and practice. Outcomes come from public sources linked on each pitch. Nothing here is investment advice, and past outcomes say nothing about any current company or offering.