Compare / Markets / Techstars vs 500 Global

compare_cohorts

Techstars vs 500 Global: two accelerators, one clear gap

Techstars companies outscore 500 Global's by 4.1 points, and the coverage check says the gap is the portfolios, not us.

Techstars

18.9 average
emerging on average
Agent readiness 8.2 · agent-aware
819 scored providers · vc
VS

500 Global

14.8 average
emerging on average
Agent readiness 6.2 · agent-aware
1691 scored providers · vc

Each sun is drawn from the cohort's averages: six facet rings, the mean Kin Score and mean agent readiness.

A clean comparisonThe higher-scoring cohort is not the one we enriched more deeply (depth_confounded: false), so this gap can be read as a difference between the markets.

Two of the largest accelerator portfolios in the catalog: 819 scored Techstars companies and 1,691 from 500 Global. Techstars averages 18.9 against 14.8, with a median of 12.7 against 10.2. Both have the same 91.6 ceiling, but 500 Global has more exemplars in absolute terms (14 against 6) because it is twice the size.

depth_confounded is false. Techstars scores higher without being the cohort we covered more deeply, since both sit at a median of five artifact directories. That makes this one of the cleaner comparisons on the page. Techstars leads on every facet, most clearly on access clarity (26.2 against 20.2), contract quality (10.6 against 7.7) and operational transparency (8.1 against 5.8). It also leads on first-party MCP (9% against 7%) and OAuth scopes (9% against 7%).

Both portfolios are thinly covered: 1,658 of 500 Global’s scored companies and 793 of Techstars’ have less than half their catalog points satisfied. Accelerator portfolios are young companies, and many have no public API yet.

The distributions

Techstars500 GlobalDelta
Kin Score, mean18.914.8+4.1
Kin Score, median12.710.2+2.5
Kin Score, highest91.691.6
Kin Score, std dev1614.9
Agent readiness, mean8.26.2+2
Agent readiness, highest62.766.5

Delta is Techstars minus 500 Global, as the tool returns it.

Where the providers sit

Techstars

exemplar 6strong 20developing 90thin 96emerging 273minimal 334

500 Global

exemplar 14strong 30developing 114thin 155emerging 452minimal 926

Facet averages

FacetTechstars500 GlobalDelta
Discoverability 55.7 52.2 +3.5
Contract Quality 10.6 7.7 +2.9
Contract Governance 3.9 2.5 +1.4
Operational Transparency 8.1 5.8 +2.3
Developer Ergonomics 18.9 14.2 +4.7
Access Clarity 26.2 20.2 +6

What they publish

Share of each cohort's providers publishing each artifact. mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.

ArtifactTechstars500 GlobalDelta
First-party MCP server9%7%+2
Any MCP artifact (incl. derived)12%9%+3
OAuth scopes9%7%+2
Spectral rules4%2%+2
Arazzo workflows2%1%+1
Agent skills0%0%0
Security artifact100%99%+1

How well we know each cohort

The coverage behind the averages. A cohort with a higher catalog gap and fewer artifact directories has been enriched less, so part of any difference is our coverage rather than the market.

Techstars500 Global
Declared members8862003
Scored (in the averages)819 (93%)1691 (85%)
Thinly covered7931658
Median artifact directories55
Mean catalog gap (points we could add)8384.7
The full compare_cohorts response
{"a":{"kind":"vc","slug":"techstars","name":"Techstars","members":881,"stats":{"kind":"vc","slug":"techstars","name":"Techstars","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":886,"resolved_members":881,"scored_members":819,"agent_scored_members":819,"scored_share_pct":93,"unexamined_members":62,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":83,"median_artifact_dirs":5,"n":819,"thinly_covered":793,"thinly_covered_of":819,"thin_coverage_note":"793 of 819 scored members had under half their catalog-attributable points satisfied at all (catalog_earned / catalog_max < 0.5). They are INCLUDED in the mean above. A large share here means the cohort mean is partly a measurement of how far our enrichment reached, not only of how these providers publish.","note":"Rubric points API Evangelist could add to the average member with no action by the providers, and the median count of artifact directories we hold on them. A cohort with a higher gap and thinner artifacts has been enriched less, so part of any difference between its mean and another cohort's is our coverage rather than the market. Compare two cohorts only when this figure is comparable. It is an upper bound on our backlog: it says who CAN close a gap, not who did."},"unexamined_note":"Excluded from the distribution: these carry a catalog-owned needs_work flag (never enriched, or no resolvable host). They are listed as members and keep their own page and score; they do not vote in the averages, because their score measures our coverage rather than their posture."},"sufficient":true,"kin_score":{"mean":18.9,"median":12.7,"min":0,"max":91.6,"stdev":16},"agent_readiness":{"mean":8.2,"median":0,"min":0,"max":62.7,"stdev":13.2},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":6,"strong":20,"developing":90,"thin":96,"emerging":273,"minimal":334},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":55.7,"n":819},"contract_quality":{"mean":10.6,"n":819},"contract_governance":{"mean":3.9,"n":819},"operational_transparency":{"mean":8.1,"n":819},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":18.9,"n":819},"access_clarity":{"mean":26.2,"n":819}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":12,"mcp_first_party_pct":9,"mcp_note":"mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.","skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":9,"security_pct":100,"arazzo_pct":2,"rules_pct":4}}},"b":{"kind":"vc","slug":"500-global","name":"500 Global","members":1992,"stats":{"kind":"vc","slug":"500-global","name":"500 Global","tier":"report","coverage":{"declared_members":2003,"resolved_members":1992,"scored_members":1691,"agent_scored_members":1691,"scored_share_pct":85,"unexamined_members":300,"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":84.7,"median_artifact_dirs":5,"n":1691,"thinly_covered":1658,"thinly_covered_of":1691,"thin_coverage_note":"1658 of 1691 scored members had under half their catalog-attributable points satisfied at all (catalog_earned / catalog_max < 0.5). They are INCLUDED in the mean above. A large share here means the cohort mean is partly a measurement of how far our enrichment reached, not only of how these providers publish.","note":"Rubric points API Evangelist could add to the average member with no action by the providers, and the median count of artifact directories we hold on them. A cohort with a higher gap and thinner artifacts has been enriched less, so part of any difference between its mean and another cohort's is our coverage rather than the market. Compare two cohorts only when this figure is comparable. It is an upper bound on our backlog: it says who CAN close a gap, not who did."},"unexamined_note":"Excluded from the distribution: these carry a catalog-owned needs_work flag (never enriched, or no resolvable host). They are listed as members and keep their own page and score; they do not vote in the averages, because their score measures our coverage rather than their posture."},"sufficient":true,"kin_score":{"mean":14.8,"median":10.2,"min":0,"max":91.6,"stdev":14.9},"agent_readiness":{"mean":6.2,"median":0,"min":0,"max":66.5,"stdev":12.2},"band_distribution":{"exemplar":14,"strong":30,"developing":114,"thin":155,"emerging":452,"minimal":926},"facet_averages":{"discoverability":{"mean":52.2,"n":1691},"contract_quality":{"mean":7.7,"n":1691},"contract_governance":{"mean":2.5,"n":1691},"operational_transparency":{"mean":5.8,"n":1691},"developer_ergonomics":{"mean":14.2,"n":1691},"access_clarity":{"mean":20.2,"n":1691}},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":9,"mcp_first_party_pct":7,"mcp_note":"mcp_pct counts any mcp/ artifact including ones API Evangelist derived from the provider OpenAPI; mcp_first_party_pct counts only servers the provider publishes. Prefer the latter.","skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":7,"security_pct":99,"arazzo_pct":1,"rules_pct":2}}},"comparable":true,"delta":{"kin_score_mean":4.1,"kin_score_median":2.5,"agent_readiness_mean":2,"facets":{"discoverability":3.5,"contract_quality":2.9,"contract_governance":1.4,"operational_transparency":2.3,"developer_ergonomics":4.7,"access_clarity":6},"adoption":{"mcp_pct":3,"mcp_first_party_pct":2,"mcp_note":null,"skills_pct":0,"scopes_pct":2,"security_pct":1,"arazzo_pct":1,"rules_pct":2},"enrichment_depth":{"mean_catalog_gap":-1.7,"median_artifact_dirs":0}},"depth_confounded":false}

Result read 2026-10-27. Techstars and 500 Global each have their own page with the full roster and leaderboard.

Run this comparison yourself

Everything above came from one call to compare_cohorts. Swap in any two tags, industries, regions, areas or VC portfolios and you get the same answer for your own shortlist. It is an Understanding tool, included in the Understanding and Influence plans, or pay per call.

From any MCP client connected to https://apis.io/mcp:
{"name": "compare_cohorts", "arguments": {"a": "vc:techstars", "b": "vc:500-global"}}
Over the REST API:
curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/cohorts/compare?a=vc:techstars&b=vc:500-global" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $APIS_IO_KEY"
See the Understanding plan Connect the MCP server →

More comparisons

Work with this as data

Every comparison here is available over the APIs.io API and to AI agents over MCP.

MCP server

One button, every client — Claude, Cursor, VS Code and the rest.

https://apis.io/mcp

Tools for market comparisons

5 MCP tools reach this
  • compare_providersUNDERSTANDING — two or more providers side by side: facets, artifacts, economics.
  • compare_cohortsUNDERSTANDING — two markets on one rubric, with the coverage check.
  • find_cohortsEvery scored population of providers in the catalog.
  • find_similar_providersProviders that look like a given one — a shortlist to compare.
  • gap_analysisINFLUENCE — what each provider is missing that the others publish.
All 92 tools →

Call it yourself

curl for this page
Compare two cohorts
curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/cohorts/compare?a=industry:payments&b=industry:banking" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $APIS_IO_KEY"
Find cohorts to compare
curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/cohorts?tier=report&limit=25" \
  -H "X-API-Key: $APIS_IO_KEY"

Discovery needs no key. Ratings and market analysis are Pro.

Get an API key

Free tier, no form to fill in. Signing in shares your email address with us — we store it to create your key and to recognise you if you sign in with another provider. See our Privacy Policy and Terms.

A second provider on the same verified email joins the account you already have.