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Forbes Midas Seed List

A companion to the Midas List that ranks the top 25 investors at dedicated seed-stage firms worldwide by the outcomes of their earliest bets. It gives seed specialists, who rarely make the main Midas List, a data-driven league table of their own.

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Reliability
Grade B · 9/12
Publisher
Forbes
Ranks
Investors, Seed-stage investors
Editions
5 since 2022
Method
Data
How items get in
Free, institutions submit data
Status
Active
Forbes Midas Seed List
SectionEditions
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Actions
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Editions

EditionPublishedTop of the listOn record
2026May 27, 2026Gili Raanan25
2025May 28, 2025Pejman Nozad25
2024June 5, 2024Pejman Nozad25
2023May 5, 2023Pejman Nozad25
2022April 14, 2022Anna Fang25

How the ranking works

Forbes and TrueBridge rank investors from dedicated seed firms only, excluding multistage firms and angels, with one individual per fund. A deal counts if the portfolio company went public or was acquired for at least $50 million, or has a private valuation above $100 million, and only if the valuation has at least tripled since the investor's first check.

Data comes from firm submissions and public sources. As with the main list, scores favor recent deals, earlier entry and higher multiples, and exact weights are not published.

Ranked positions: Each item has a position (1, 2, 3), with ties allowed. Built from the same free Midas submissions (eligible submissions are considered automatically) plus public data. No fees; TrueBridge, a venture fund-of-funds, is the data partner.

Read the publisher’s methodology

How far to trust it

Superscout grades every ranking on six criteria, each scored 0 to 2. Forbes Midas Seed List scores 9 of 12, grade B.

Transparency 1/2
Thresholds published, weights not.
Independence 1/2
Free submissions, but the data partner invests in venture funds.
Evidence 2/2
Deal outcomes and valuations.
Stability 2/2
Same criteria reported in 2022 and 2024.
Coverage 1/2
Top 25 from dedicated seed firms only.
Track record 2/2
Five editions.

History

Forbes launched the Midas Seed List in April 2022 alongside the main Midas List, with Anna Fang of ZhenFund at No. 1. Pejman Nozad of Pear VC led in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and Gili Raanan of Cyberstarts took the top spot in the fifth edition in May 2026. No method break has been announced.

How it is received

Seed firms publicize placements widely (for example boldstart ventures posts on its annual ranking), and the list is read as the seed-stage counterpart to the Midas List. No substantive published criticism specific to the Seed list was found in this research pass; the general Midas critiques (submission dependence, unrealized valuations, confidential weights) apply.

Strengths

  • Focuses on seed specialists that the main list tends to miss.
  • Clear published eligibility thresholds (3x markup, $50M exit or $100M valuation).
  • Free to submit.
  • Consistent method across its five editions.

Weaknesses

  • Only 25 names, so coverage is thin.
  • Excludes angels and multistage-firm seed investors by design.
  • Relies partly on unrealized private valuations.
  • Weights and underlying data are confidential.

Open questions

Facts not verified yet. They stay visible so they are not mistaken for settled facts.

Superscout describes Forbes Midas Seed List independently from the publisher’s own pages and outside coverage, linked below. The rankings belong to Forbes.

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Sources and known limits

Last reviewed .