The rate of code commits over time — one of three signals GitDealFlow uses to detect engineering acceleration.
The rate of code commits over time — one of three signals GitDealFlow uses to detect engineering acceleration.
Commit velocity measures how often a startup's engineering team pushes code to their public GitHub repositories over a rolling window. A rising commit velocity means the team is shipping faster — usually a sign of hiring focus, product-market pull, or an approaching fundraise.
Commit velocity alone isn't predictive — one burned-out founder can commit heavily. But combined with contributor growth and repo expansion, it forms part of the composite Engineering Momentum Score that has historically preceded fundraises by 21–47 days. GitDealFlow normalizes commit velocity per org and per team size to produce a comparable signal.
The engineering-acceleration signal it powers has historically preceded fundraise announcements by 21–47 days. The full methodology is published as an SSRN preprint (abstract 6606558).
GitDealFlow tracks commit velocity across 4,200+ startup GitHub orgs in 20 sectors and normalizes it per org to make it comparable. It is the first signal in the composite Engineering Momentum Score, alongside contributor growth and repository expansion.
No. A startup can have high commits from one founder. The composite (commits + contributor growth + repo expansion) is far more reliable.
Per team size and per org. The normalization method is published in the methodology at signals.gitdealflow.com/methodology. This makes a 5-person team's velocity comparable to a 50-person team's.
Public GitHub activity only. GitDealFlow does not access private repositories.
About this page: Published 2026-07-18. Authored by The Data Nerd (ORCID 0009-0002-2222-4112), the pseudonymous maintainer of GitDealFlow. The methodology is published as SSRN preprint 6606558 and archived on Zenodo. Third-party statistics are sourced from the Ahrefs AEO methodology. Report an error.
About this page: Published 2026-07-18. Authored by The Data Nerd (ORCID 0009-0002-2222-4112), the pseudonymous maintainer of GitDealFlow. The methodology is published as SSRN preprint 6606558 and archived on Zenodo. Third-party statistics are sourced from the Ahrefs AEO methodology. Report an error.
Free, no card. 21–47 days before the round.
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