超早期投资：如何能在创业者还未创业的时候就成为伯乐？

    既然塔吉特（Target）可以先于少女的父亲知道她已经怀孕，那么，风险投资公司也应该有能力在初创公司诞生之前，便锁定潜在的创始人。所需要的只是适当的数据而已。

    这正是不断演进的风险投资行业未来的发展方向。正如马克•苏斯特上周指出的那样，风险投资行业的两极分化日益加剧。一方面，种子基金如雨后春笋般崛起，占新建基金总数的67%，另一方面，大型基金则变得日益庞大。对于早期投资者而言，这意味着竞争日益激烈，进而导致估值泡沫。等到一位公司创始人开始进行种子期融资时，其公司的估值可能已经达到1,000万美元。

    要避免这种情况，方法之一是将投资的节点提前。在公司还未诞生之前就进行投资。甚至连创始人自己都不知道他们会进行创业的时候，便提前开始“烧冷灶”。彭博资讯（Bloomberg LP）旗下的创投基金Bloomberg Beta已经花了一年时间这么做了。

    该基金曾尝试独自建立“未来创始人”数据库，但以失败告终，因此，它决定与丹尼尔•莫里尔创建的交易情报公司Mattermark合作。其研究结果可能对投资决策方式产生深远影响。目前的投资决策通常均基于投资者的本能和直觉。

    Mattermark确定了成功的创始人最有可能的职业发展路径，并创建了一个150万人的数据库，由距离科技创业公司1-2个维度的人组成，但还不是创始人。通过分析八个月内创建公司的人，Mattermark先标出了确定一个人是否会创建公司最强有力的预测因素：一个人所接受的教育；他们之前工作的公司与所达到的职务级别；地理位置和年龄。这么做的目标是找出那些不符合标准创业路径的东西。正如莫里尔指出的：“凡是看起来成型的东西，那肯定已经有人找到它了。”

    最终结果显示，创业者的年龄要高于预期，但从事的职位没有达到预计高度。数据库内的群体，约40%超过了40岁。约有一半的人曾在有风投注资的公司工作，但有三分之二的人未从事过高级管理职务。管理咨询顾问创业的几率是其他职业的两倍。Bloomberg Beta最终锁定了350名潜在创始人，并邀请他们前往纽约和旧金山参加聚会。

    If Target can figure out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did, venture firms should be able to identify founders before they start companies. All it takes is the right data.

    That’s where venture capital—ever evolving—is headed. As Mark Susterpointed out last week, the venture capital landscape has become increasingly bifurcated. Seed funds are springing up everywhere, representing 67% of all new funds created, and large funds have gotten even larger. For the early stage investors, this means increased competition and frothy valuations. By the time a founder sets out to raise a seed round, the startup’s valuation might be $10 million.

    One way to get around that is to invest even earlier. Invest before the company is a company. Before the founder even knows they’re a founder. Bloomberg Beta, the venture investment arm of Bloomberg LP, has been doing this for a year now.

    After an unsuccessful attempt to build a database of “future founders” on its own, the firm teamed up with Mattermark, the deal intelligence company founded by Danielle Morrill. The results could have ramifications for the way investment decisions, typically driven by gut instinct and intuition, are made.

    Mattermark identified the most likely career paths of successful founders, creating a pool of 1.5 million people who were connected by one to two degrees of separation to tech startups, but were not founders yet. By analyzing the people that started companies over nine months, Mattermark mapped out the strongest predictors of starting a company: a person’s education, which previous companies they’ve worked for and how senior they were, their geography, and their age. The goal was to find things that didn’t fit the standard path to entrepreneurship. As Morrill points out: “Anything that looks like a pattern, people will already find it.”

    The resulting mix of people were older but less senior than you’d expect. Almost 40% of those in the dataset were over 40 years old. Almost half of the people in the data set had worked for a VC-backed company, but two thirds were not in senior leadership positions. Management consultants were twice as likely to start companies. Bloomberg Beta narrowed the list to 350 potential founders, and invited them to parties in New York and San Francisco.