What Is Engineering Acceleration? The Metric VCs Are Starting to Track

Engineering acceleration is the rate of change in a startup's GitHub commit velocity, not how much code they write, but how much faster they are writing it compared to their own baseline. (To be clear: this is code-side momentum, GitHub commit velocity, not participation in a startup accelerator program like Y Combinator or Techstars.) A startup with 40 commits this period and 20 last period shows +100% acceleration. This metric has historically preceded fundraise announcements by three to six weeks because the underlying causes, post-raise hiring, product-market fit iteration, launch preparation, drive engineering output before they drive press coverage or Crunchbase entries.

Key stats

+100%: Threshold (14-day commit velocity doubling vs prior period)

3-6 weeks: Lead time (Acceleration → public fundraise)

4 patterns: Signal types (Hiring burst, sprint, infra, migration)

References

[1] DORA Metrics - Accelerate State of DevOps: Google DORA

[2] GitHub REST API - Commit Activity: GitHub Docs

[3] Engineering Acceleration as a VC Deal Flow Signal: SSRN