UnicornHuntr:  Predict  the  success  of  early-­‐stage  startups  

Yun  Lee  +  

There  were  514,000  new  business  owners  in  2012    

…but  half  of  all  businesses  fail  within  five  years  

−  U.S.  Bureau  of  Labor  StaKsKcs  

How  to  predict  the  success  of  early-­‐stage  startups?  

Random  forest  classifier  •  Train/validate:  2+  year-­‐old  startups  (n  =  4565)  •  Predict:  new  startups  (n  =  1760)    Numerical  features  •  expansion  rate  •  total  pre-­‐series  A  funding    Categorical  features  •  industries  •  business  models  •  locaHon  

5-­‐fold  cross  validaHon  accuracy  =  0.79  ±  0.04  

Mobile  

Enterprise  soVware  

Social  networking  Media  

EducaKon  

PharmaceuKcals  

Biotechnology  

Yun  Lee,  Ph.D.  Insight  Data  Science  Fellow  

Supplementary  Slides  

−  pre-­‐series  A  funding  +  angel  funding  

5-­‐fold  cross  validaHon  accuracy  =  0.75  ±  0.03