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Crunchbase Will abandon its roots as a historic data supplier to become a prediction engine powered by AI which provides for start -up financing series, acquisitions and business growth trajectories.
The company based in San Francisco has announced today that it would relaunch its platform with models of AI which can predict future commercial events with precision up to 95%, betting that artificial intelligence will fundamentally The way investors and businesses make decisions on private markets.
“The historical data industry as we know it is dead,” said Jager McConnellCEO of Crunchbase, in an interview with Venturebeat. “If you are a company, a data company and you have all the business, these are historical data … I think you will see that you no longer use it as much in the future.”
AI disrupts traditional market data; Crunchbase declares the old “dead” model
The movement marks a dramatic change for Crunchbase, which has built its reputation as Crowdsourced database Information on startups over 15 years. McConnell maintains that traditional data providers are faced with an existential threat of AI systems that can easily absorb and analyze historical information.
“AI companies are an existential threat to data companies, not just software companies,” said McConnell. “If you process historical data, once your data is in these systems, the facts remain facts. Even the data behind the payment halls end up leaking, and once this is the case, your value disappears because AIS can create better information by combining it with all data on the Internet. »»
Instead of focusing only on past events, Crunchbase now uses its massive data set – including 80 million active users – to predict future trade results. The AI of the company analyzes thousands of signals to provide events concerning fundraising, acquisitions and growth.
How the Crunchbase AI uses 80 million users to predict the next big startup
According to Megh GautamThe Crunchbase Product Manager, the company’s predictions arise from a unique combination of contributed data, data captured from public sources and user engagement anonymization models.
“The real magic behind our ability to predict key stages in the company’s life cycles lies in our unprecedented extent and depth of knowledge,” Gautam told Venturebeat. “We have built widespread features, not settled on a single set of data.”
The company says that its fundraising forecasts reach up to 95% precision and a 99% reminder in backtesting – which means that it correctly identifies most companies that continue to raise funds, with little false positive. For 12 months’ predictions, the precision remains in the “high 70s percent”, according to McConnell.
Beyond fundraising, the Crunchbase AI can predict acquisitions, BIPE, business growth and even potential layoffs – although McConnell has declared that certain negative predictions will not be posted publicly to avoid to harm companies.
The future of investment: can AI outline human decision-making?
Strategic change occurs while investors are increasingly looking for predictive signals rather than historical data. “The problem they are trying to attack is, what do we do next?” Said Gautam. “Our users want to be the first to market.”
For the future, McConnell plans that Crunchbase becomes a platform that feeds investment decisions motivated by AI, including potentially automated investment systems and monitoring indices of the private market sectors.
“I think that in five years, everyone is dead,” warned McConnell, referring to traditional data companies. “The forests of the world must understand what their experience of the user interface will look like … This thing is so fluid that in five years, a data company that does not do what we are talking about will not exist.”
The transformation positions crunchbase to compete more directly with traditional market information providers and emerging investment platforms on AI. The company plans to allow customers to incorporate its predictive signals into their own models while keeping control of its precious underlying data.
Industry analysts note that the change of crunchbase is involved in an increasing interest in using AI for investment decisions, although many investors remain skeptical about fully automated approaches. The success of the company may depend on the possibility of maintaining a high prediction precision as it evolves while convincing customers to trust its ideas generated by AI.
McConnell stresses that Crunchbase aims to increase rather than replacing human decision -making: “We fundamentally believe in the increase … [are] Quite subjective, and your thesis must correspond, and the price must correspond. »»
The renamed platform publicly launches today at Crunchbase.aiMarking what McConnell calls a “precipice of everything that changes” in the way investors assess private companies. In its opinion, the future does not belong to those who collect the most data, but to those who can best predict what will happen next.
