Show HN: Startup data 2000-2012 from CrunchBase

Show HN: Startup data 2000-2012 from CrunchBase(betabeers.com)

60 points by miquelcamps 13 years ago | 26 comments

jpdoctor 13 years ago |

Crunchbase is pretty incomplete before 2004 it seems.

Several of the comm companies I checked were missing.

Edit: Upon further testing, it seems that many of the communications wipeouts ($40+M) from that era are missing. It's almost as if the people who funded them don't want the magnitude of the mistakes in the record.

Here's an example: Photonex, raised $170M [1] over the course of their lifetime and not a trace on crunchbase of who the culprits were.

Another quick example: Solinet [2] raised a pile of dough (they later renamed themselves Ceyba).

[1] http://www.lightreading.com/ip-convergence/photonex-scores-h...

[2] http://www.lightreading.com/ip-convergence/solinet-systems-s...

ig1 13 years ago |

(I run SeedTable which also does analytics on Crunchbase data)

The problem with ranking by funding/acquisition amounts is the data is pretty dirty, and outliers are disproportionately likely to be incorrect data (because someone fat fingered a number to be an order of magnitude larger, or put a foreign currency amount in as USD). Although the acq data is better than the funding data.

You might also want to extract stuff like biotech from the data because it's fundamentally a completely separate market from software tech.

ipedrazas 13 years ago | |

Still, on that table we can see that on 2012 there was less funding and less acquisition.

Will be interesting to see what happens during 2013 but it seems that there's not as much money as on 2010/2011

ig1 13 years ago | | |

Yes the counted metrics are much more reliable.

It's much harder for TC to misenter an acquisition/funding round then it is for them accidentally add an extra zero to a number.

aaasen 13 years ago |

It's crazy that there are so many huge companies that I've never heard of. Instagram's acquisition was huge news at $1B, but I didn't hear a peep about Ariba at $4.3B or Genzyme at $20B.

It's easy to think that consumer oriented web startups are what's hot, but this data proves otherwise.

jpdoctor 13 years ago | |

> It's easy to think that consumer oriented web startups are what's hot, but this data proves otherwise.

I think what it proves: Crunchbase serves the PR segment of consumer oriented web companies, and fails to serve other segments well. Let's face it, it's not so much a database as it is part of the techcrunch PR machine.

waterlesscloud 13 years ago | |

I wonder if a lot of the "there's no innovation any more" talk is a result of the fact that things like biotech just doesn't get the same coverage as the web startups?

There's a lot of biotech/pharmacutecal companies in those lists. Something is happening in that industry, even if we don't hear much about it here and elsewhere.

hkmurakami 13 years ago | |

One thing to consider is how long each of these companies hd been in existence before getting acquired. One thing with consumer web is that the time between conception and exit is comparatively short compared to other industries.

bdcravens 13 years ago |

T-Mobile is listed as the top acquisition of 2011, but that deal was blocked by the DoJ and later dropped by AT&T. In other words, the charts are based on announcements, not necessarily consummated transactions.

samspenc 13 years ago | |

Exactly what I was thinking.

ronnix 13 years ago |

Were some companies acquired multiple times the same year, or is there a bug somewhere? (RazorFish is listed 3 times in 2002, DoubleClick and Skype twice in 2005, Getty Images twice in 2008, Sterling Commerce twice in 2009.)

miquelcamps 13 years ago | |

ouch! fixed, thanks :)

skhamkar 13 years ago |

Here are some links to CSV files based on miquelcamps's sql file.

Acquisitions http://db.tt/h6PoPnCn

Companies http://db.tt/UNYulmJD

Funding http://db.tt/SHa45HHc

Words http://db.tt/mJMCIREX

hkmurakami 13 years ago |

For funding categories by year, I really think it would be nicer/more-useful if we could look at a time-series line graph by sector over a longer time period (5+ years) to see trends.

minimaxir 13 years ago |

Which endpoint(s) of the CrunchBase API are you using? I'm planning on doing something similar graphically.

miquelcamps 13 years ago | |

honestly I have not used the API, i've done some web scraping, if you want you can download the database here ;)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pzhqhtk4g23temz/crunchbase.sql.zip

wilson_guaraca 13 years ago | | |

Hey Miguel! I am currently writing a thesis on venture capital and I have similar data from a database called VentureXpert. I will share it with you via twitter once I finish in a couple of weeks. I am curious to see how different our data looks. Thanks for posting.

Twitter: @wguaraca

skhamkar 13 years ago | | |

Thanks! This is pretty cool data.

minimaxir 13 years ago | | |

That works too. :P

Thanks!

ev_ancasey 13 years ago |

cool stuff. how are you grouping data startups within the funding categories section?

i'd be interested to see the breakdown in recent years of startups that offer a data product, i.e. data infrastructure, ad optimization, user tracking, etc

miquelcamps 13 years ago | |

I would like to be more specific with the categories, but crunchbase for the most of internet based startups the main category is "Consumer Web".

Example: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/rent-com

If you want, you can download the database and check the companies table https://www.dropbox.com/s/pzhqhtk4g23temz/crunchbase.sql.zip

sylvinus 13 years ago |

Funny that the 3 "top paying" acquirers are telcos and not Googles :)

ejfox 13 years ago |

Hello I'd like your data please.

miquelcamps 13 years ago | |

You can download it here ;) https://www.dropbox.com/s/pzhqhtk4g23temz/crunchbase.sql.zip

kevin_morrill 13 years ago | | |

Is your list of companies in this db everything in their entity list of companies, or just ones that got acquired?