Key Takeaways
- • Parkway Venture Capital ranked first among the top 100 emerging U.S. venture capital firms in the 2026 Strebulaev-Jackson ranking, scoring 3,221 points ahead of Factorial Funds (2,958) and Future Ventures (2,875), according to the firm's GlobeNewswire announcement.
- • The ranking, created by Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Ilya Strebulaev and researcher Blake Jackson, is built from more than 230,000 investments by nearly 13,000 venture capitalists from 2016 through June 30, 2026, and scores firms on realized value rather than reputation or self-reported returns.
- • Parkway also placed in the top 20 of the companion ranking of 100 leading U.S. venture firms, a notable result for a firm founded in 2019 against peers that mostly date to before 2000.
- • Portfolio company Pasqal, a French neutral-atom quantum computing firm, began trading on Nasdaq under PSQL on August 28, 2026, after its business combination with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II; shares rose as much as 73% on day one and the transaction valued the company at roughly $2 billion.
- • Parkway's concentrated strategy, which leads rounds and takes board seats in a small number of companies, is central to its ranking, and the firm expects to defend its position in coming years.
Summary
Parkway Venture Capital announced on October 13, 2026 that it ranked first among emerging U.S. venture firms in the 2026 Strebulaev-Jackson ranking, according to a GlobeNewswire release issued by the firm. The ranking, created by Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Ilya Strebulaev and researcher Blake Jackson, draws on more than 230,000 investments made by nearly 13,000 venture capitalists between 2016 and June 30, 2026. The methodology discounts private valuations, tracks ownership through dilution, measures net profit against capital deployed, and gives additional credit to investors who led rounds and took board seats. Parkway scored 3,221 points, ahead of Factorial Funds at 2,958 and Future Ventures at 2,875. Paradigm, Craft Ventures and Bedrock complete the top six.
In the companion ranking of the 100 leading U.S. venture firms, Parkway placed in the top 20. The firm noted that eight of those top 20 were founded before 2000 and that many peers have invested for more than 30 years, and it described itself as one of only a handful of post-2015 firms to reach the upper ranks. Co-founder and managing partner Gregg Hill said the ranking "counted who wrote the first check, who took the board seat and who stayed through the hard rounds."
The announcement coincided with a liquidity event in the portfolio. Pasqal, the French neutral-atom quantum computing company Parkway backed before its listing, completed its business combination with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II on August 27, 2026 and began trading on Nasdaq under PSQL on August 28. Shares rose as much as 73% on the first day. The transaction valued Pasqal at roughly $2 billion and placed approximately $360 million of cash on its balance sheet, and the company plans a subsequent listing on Euronext. Pasqal operates seven quantum processors at national supercomputing centers in France, Germany, Italy and Canada, with three more in production, and counts Saudi Aramco, Crédit Agricole CIB and LG Electronics among its customers. Co-founder Alain Aspect won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Parkway cited other portfolio positions as evidence of its approach. The firm led the $70 million Series A in Figure AI in 2023 and the multi-billion dollar Series C in 2025, and remains among the humanoid-robotics company's largest shareholders. It was the first venture backer of SandboxAQ after the quantum and AI company spun out of Google in 2022, backed xAI's $6 billion Series B in 2024, and led a $2 billion Series A in AI lab Hark in 2026. The firm concentrates capital in a small group of founders, leads rounds, partners closely with companies, and remains sector-agnostic. Co-founder and managing partner Jesse Coors-Blankenship said the firm runs a concentrated book because "you cannot be that involved in 200 companies."
Parkway, founded in 2019 and headquartered in New York with an office in Winter Park, Fla., said it expects to defend its top ranking in the years ahead, citing Figure AI and SandboxAQ scaling, Pasqal's public listing, and growth in TAE Technologies, OXOS Medical and Hark. The ranking is a self-promotional announcement from the firm, and its claims about its own standing have not been independently verified beyond the Stanford-led methodology.
In the companion ranking of the 100 leading U.S. venture firms, Parkway placed in the top 20. The firm noted that eight of those top 20 were founded before 2000 and that many peers have invested for more than 30 years, and it described itself as one of only a handful of post-2015 firms to reach the upper ranks. Co-founder and managing partner Gregg Hill said the ranking "counted who wrote the first check, who took the board seat and who stayed through the hard rounds."
The announcement coincided with a liquidity event in the portfolio. Pasqal, the French neutral-atom quantum computing company Parkway backed before its listing, completed its business combination with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II on August 27, 2026 and began trading on Nasdaq under PSQL on August 28. Shares rose as much as 73% on the first day. The transaction valued Pasqal at roughly $2 billion and placed approximately $360 million of cash on its balance sheet, and the company plans a subsequent listing on Euronext. Pasqal operates seven quantum processors at national supercomputing centers in France, Germany, Italy and Canada, with three more in production, and counts Saudi Aramco, Crédit Agricole CIB and LG Electronics among its customers. Co-founder Alain Aspect won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Parkway cited other portfolio positions as evidence of its approach. The firm led the $70 million Series A in Figure AI in 2023 and the multi-billion dollar Series C in 2025, and remains among the humanoid-robotics company's largest shareholders. It was the first venture backer of SandboxAQ after the quantum and AI company spun out of Google in 2022, backed xAI's $6 billion Series B in 2024, and led a $2 billion Series A in AI lab Hark in 2026. The firm concentrates capital in a small group of founders, leads rounds, partners closely with companies, and remains sector-agnostic. Co-founder and managing partner Jesse Coors-Blankenship said the firm runs a concentrated book because "you cannot be that involved in 200 companies."
Parkway, founded in 2019 and headquartered in New York with an office in Winter Park, Fla., said it expects to defend its top ranking in the years ahead, citing Figure AI and SandboxAQ scaling, Pasqal's public listing, and growth in TAE Technologies, OXOS Medical and Hark. The ranking is a self-promotional announcement from the firm, and its claims about its own standing have not been independently verified beyond the Stanford-led methodology.
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