From an investor’s point of view, finding innovative and profitable startups is always a priority. Till now, discovering those promising startups involved middlemen, including partners in your business circle or some external network connections. This method is still prevalent and is quite effective to some level. However, with modern technology, more productive and cost-effective methods have arrived in the market to produce an alternative to old-age methods.
Startup scouting is one such process that helps VCs and other investors discover the best early-stage startups globally using modern technology without wasting their valuable time.
In this article, we will learn about startup scouting in detail and explore several ways in which this technique can benefit investors.
What is Startup Scouting?
Startup Scouting is the process of identifying promising early-stage startups or ventures for collaboration alongside industry leaders in a sustainable growth environment. The main goal of startup scouting is to put innovative, disruptive, and unique business models under the radar in a particular time frame.
The selection criteria for these models depend on various factors like scalability, team competence, market potential, and industry trends to select the best startups that can benefit startups themselves, established industries, and investors.
Methods for Scouting Startups
There are several methods to look for reliable and promising startups in the industry:
Databases and Directories
Startup databases like Crunchbase and AngelList have hundreds of thousands of startups in their directory consisting of financial information alongside comprehensive listings of board members and key personals. Moreover, Crunchbase‘s data is not challenging to extract compared to other platforms like LinkedIn, which has put several restrictions on its data after its takeover by Microsoft in 2016.
Networking and Conferences
Startup conferences are one of the great platforms to establish a network with potential collaborators and other investors. The pitch competitions and panel discussions at these conferences provide opportunities for investors to connect with founders face-to-face and discover new innovative startups.
Hackathons and Startup Competitions
National and international-level hackathons or startup competitions in universities and colleges often reveal the unique and most innovative ideas for the industry, while also providing an opportunity for collaboration with the respective founders. It also allows investors to get insights into emerging startups and trends within specific sectors or industries.
How EnrichmentAPI can help in Startup Scouting?
Startup Scouting with modern technology is an effective and cost-saving method to search for creative, inventive, and hard-working startups. It also offers several benefits for investors around the world:
Access to innovative ideas — Scouting startups globally enables investors to gain access to a goldmine of innovative ideas and disruptive technologies to transform the industries to a whole new level.
One such unique example is Paytm, which was initially funded by Sapphire Ventures in 2011, allowing the startup to lay a brick to revolutionize the complete economy of India into a digital one.
High ROI — Effective startup scouting can result in a high return on investment if the startup can crack its industry successfully and its products get widely adopted in the market.
Peter Theil, the former CEO of Paypal, invested 500,000$ in Facebook during its initial days. It was the first investment received by FaceBook. He exited with more than 1 Billion dollars in cash, creating an insane ROI demonstrating exceptional returns.
Access to New Markets — Scouting startups can help you tap into new markets and industries, create strategic partnerships and collaboration with other influential people, and access new customer segments.
Startup scouting combined with modern technology offers a quality opportunity for investors to tap into innovational ideas and potentially high-ROI ventures. EnrichmentAPI’s Company Investment API is one such powerful tool that enables investors to get fresh deep insights into company financial details, including funding rounds, lead investments, valuations, and other financial metrics that are necessary for predicting the growth trajectory of a startup, thereby assisting in the identification of high-growth potential startups at an early stage and supporting informed decision-making when considering investment opportunities.
To illustrate, we will consider a list of the top 10 startups from Houston, Texas, extracting the financial details to evaluate which startup will be the best for future investment. Such an analysis can be beneficial for the VCs. This task will be conducted using a simple Python script.
import requests
import csv
def get_data():
list_names = [
"axiom-space",
"graylog",
"highradius",
"circular-board",
"onit",
"riversand",
"beyond-finance",
"majority",
"macrofab",
"cart-com"
]
funding_data = []
for name in list_names:
url = f"https://api.enrichmentapi.io/investment?api_key=APIKEY&company={name}"
response = requests.get(url)
funding_data.append(response.json()["crunchbase_data"]["company"]["financials"]["highlights"])
funding_data = [
{
"funding_rounds": next((item["value"] for item in entry if item["title"] == "Funding Rounds"), None),
"lead_investors": next((item["value"] for item in entry if item["title"] == "Lead Investors"), None),
"investors": next((item["value"] for item in entry if item["title"] == "Investors"), None)
}
for entry in funding_data
]
funding_data = [
{
"name": list_names[index],
"funding_rounds": item["funding_rounds"],
"lead_investors": item["lead_investors"],
"investors": item["investors"]
}
for index, item in enumerate(funding_data)
]
with open('startups.csv', mode='a', newline='') as file:
writer = csv.DictWriter(file, fieldnames=["name", "funding_rounds", "lead_investors", "investors"])
if file.tell() == 0: # Checking if the file is empty
writer.writeheader()
writer.writerows(funding_data)
get_data()
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Once you get the API Key, integrate it in the above code and execute it in your project terminal. You will get a CSV file as the output in your project directory.
Disclaimer: We know these data points are not sufficient for selecting the best startup. For this illustration, we will consider the startup with the most number of investors as the key data point for identifying the best from the list.
According to the table above, “Axiom-Space” emerges as the best startup for investment among those listed.
As you can see, it is simple to use and reveals valuable insights into a company, assisting investors to decide if the respective company is a better choice for future investment.
Conclusion
There is always a chance to look for better opportunities when everybody is afraid of the shaky and recessive economy. Using effective modern technology for scouting startups not only increases the probability of an excellent long-term investment but also leads you to the path of success and glory.
In this article, we learned about Startup Scouting. We also explored how it can be beneficial for investors.
If you are looking for a reliable data provider in the market, please do not hesitate to contact us via email.