← State of B2B Buying Signals

Research snapshot · September 25, 2026

65% of signals in our B2B watchlist were not funding rounds

Funding was the largest single category in a snapshot of Intakra’s watchlist. Most detections came from other kinds of change. This is a reason to widen the review list, not proof that any account intends to buy.

Analysis dated September 25, 2026 · Dataset April 13–September 24, 2026

65.4%

449 of 687 detections were categorized as something other than funding.

238

Funding detections. Filtering the snapshot to funding alone would retain these and omit the other 449.

What made up the 687 detections

The counts below come from the public state-of-buying-signals report as checked September 25. Product launches, M&A, and executive changes together accounted for 338 detections, 100 more than funding.

Signal type counts in the September 24 corpus snapshot
Event typeDetections
Funding238
Product launch175
M&A100
Exec change63
Press mention55
Other non-funding types56
Total687

Other types: hiring surges (22), expansion (10), layoffs (9), partnerships (8), regulatory events (4), and technology changes (3).

What to do with a wider watchlist

A launch, acquisition, or leadership change may create work a supplier can help with. The event alone does not establish a relevant problem, budget, or an open buying process. Those questions require a separate review.

  1. 1. Verify the event. Open the original source and confirm what happened and when. A page with a date is not necessarily evidence of a new event on that date.
  2. 2. Name the possible work. Check whether a launch needs support, an acquisition creates integration work, or a new leader has a stated remit that relates to your offer.
  3. 3. Keep the unknowns visible. If the source does not support the connection, leave the account on a watchlist. A general press mention is especially weak without another concrete change.

In this corpus, 88 of the 302 companies with at least one detected signal had two or more distinct signal types. That count can help select records for closer review. It is not a measured increase in conversion likelihood.

Hands-on check · September 25

What changed when only the timing changed

We tried Intakra’s free single-signal score checker with “New exec / leader hired” as the event and “Directly” as the relevance. Only the When field changed.

Displayed score checker output when the timing field changed
WhenTiming valueScoreBand
This week1.0090Hot
This month0.7063Hot
This quarter0.4036Warm
Older0.1514Cool

The same hypothetical event lost priority as it aged under this simplified rule. These four tool outputs do not test the full product’s ranking or show that a recent executive hire leads to a meeting or sale.

Method and limits

What these numbers can say

The report aggregates detections from Intakra’s own watchlists of 1,110 B2B companies. The dataset includes historical backfill and excludes future-dated detection timestamps. The report says all 687 included signals link to public sources across 192 outlets and feeds. A link makes a claim inspectable; it does not independently verify that the linked page establishes the labeled event.

These watchlists are not a random sample of the B2B market. Detection frequency does not establish which events produced meetings, purchases, or revenue. The narrow conclusion is that funding-only monitoring would omit most of the event types in this particular snapshot.

Reproduce the arithmetic. The frozen source file records every category count, the data window, our controlled score-checker settings and outputs, and the limitations. Download the September 25 snapshot (JSON). The live report may change after this date.

Review your own market

Use the free scan to generate a dated research list, then verify each record against its original source. A public event is a lead for investigation, not a buyer-intent claim.

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