“Nothing kills startups like distractions…Paradoxically, fundraising is this type of distraction, so try to minimize that.”

- Paul Graham, Y Combinator

Fuel Your Startup Cindy Chen

Algorithm: Binary Link Prediction Data Source: CrunchBase

Network Pairs

100,000+

Companies

3000+

Funding Rounds

8000+

Investors

1000+

Algorithm: Binary Link Prediction Data Source: CrunchBase

Network Pairs

100,000+

Companies

3000+

Funding Rounds

8000+

Investors

1000+

Each Company

Each Funding Round

Invested InvestorsPositive Sample

Negative Sample: Down Sample 10 X #of Positive Sample

Cut Time Extract features before the time of the funding round

X XRandom Forest

Classifier

Network of Companies, Investors, and People

The Startup

Founder

Advisor

Employee

Competitor

Investor

Network of Companies, Investors, and People

The Startup

Founder

Advisor

Employee

Competitor

Investor

Company X Company Y

Investor A

Investor B

Investor C

Co-work

Co-invest

Co-invest

Invested your competitor

Location, Categories, and Funding Round

The Startup

Founder

Advisor

Employee

Competitor

Investor

Company X Company Y

Investor A

Investor B

Investor C

Co-work

Co-invest

Co-invest

Invested your competitor

Location Funding RoundCategories/Market

Leave-One-Company-Out Cross Validation

How many total investors I need to meet until all investors who will actually invest are met?

Cindy Chen

Popular investors invested in the location and categories

Baseline

Focus on Recall

Med

ian

Rec

all

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

Number of Top Investors Chosen0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

Baseline Random Forest

Leave-One-Company-Out Cross Validation

How many total investors I need to meet until all investors who will actually invest are met?

Cindy Chen

Popular investors invested in the location and categories

Baseline

Focus on Recall

Med

ian

Rec

all

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

Number of Top Investors Chosen0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

Baseline Random Forest

Cindy Chen

Additional Slides

Algorithm Cindy Chen

Features are not correlated

1. Within 1st degree: Invested previous round

2. # of paths within 2nd and 3rd degree (co-invest and co-work)

3. Within 1st degree: other4. Invested competitors5. Funding round match6. Categories similarity with investors’

portfolio companies7. Location similarity with investors’

portfolio companies