Since joining Atlas in early 2010, I’ve been lucky enough to have a front row seat to the disruption unfolding in early stage tech. It’s been absolutely amazing to watch the speed at which the funding market is evolving. Whether it’s the creation of new categories of investors (micro VCs) or the role of incubators, the market is digesting a variety of changes that reflect the new economic realities of building web based companies. It was only a matter of time before we ate our own dog food and brought some (or all) of the fundraising process online. After all, it’s a highly social process that’s dying for standardization and broader distribution.
It’s no surprise then that AngelList (AL) has become a force for tech companies looking to raise their early round(s) of financing. For full disclosure, we’re huge fans of AL over here. From our history together (Jeff and Nivi worked together for years at Seed Capital and Songbird) to helping spread the gospel in the US and Europe, Atlas has fully embraced change that AngelList embodies. Several prominent people have said their piece about AngelList, but I think much of the discussion has missed the real contributions of the platform and its potential for the future. Away from the headlines and funding announcements, the AL team has quietly and masterfully started to bring some structure to our chaotic world. So when they released an API this fall, everyone at Atlas was excited to build on their taxonomy and spark a discussion. I teamed up with our friends at Bocoup who share our penchant for transparency to try and leverage AL’s data in a new way.
So today we give you startupdatatrends.com!
The inspiration for the project and product design came from an experience I had earlier this fall sourcing a seed deal that, by many measures, fell through the cracks. (They haven’t announced yet, so I won’t name them). The team is a crafty band of talented technical founders that built an amazing v1 product and garnered admirable traction through solid inbound marketing, some word of mouth and an effortless signup process. But being outside the U.S. and having no formal work experience (they skipped university to build this company), the traditional hooks failed to get their company above the noise. I noticed them by scanning the newly added startups. Their screenshots quickly jumped out and highlighted their keen product sense. After two calls and an in-person meeting, the rest is history.
Our hope is that startupdatatrends.com will help foster a discussion about market transparency in some traditionally hidden areas (round size and price) and create a new view for the AL platform that is less about social proof and more about market + product. While imperfect and simplistic, the location and market data does take a small step forward towards understanding what an early round of financing may look like based on recent data. The thought, planning and strategy that can come from that will hopefully help people raise their own bar and make those initial discussions with investors a little easier.
Finally, it’s worth noting that transparency is a two way street. In discussions with a number of entrepreneurs, they’ve expressed hesitation about putting their data out there. More thought can and should go into how we best share on AL and elsewhere, but it’s fair to say that transparency helps markets and there’s no reason ours should be different. To that end, take a look at Bocoup’s post about the project and we’re elated to be giving back to the Backbone.js community.