Bloomberg LP-backed venture investment firm Bloomberg Beta has come up with the names of 350 employees who have the potential to become startup founders, TechCrunch reported.
The list was created by the early stage investor through the use of analytical tools and research done together with Mattermark. Karin Klein, who is Bloomberg Beta's Partner in its office in New York, told TechCrunch, "We're always trying to look at can we do venture capital in a different way. This next future founders project is expanding that."
Bloomberg Beta first analyzed the characteristics of the founders of venture-backed firms which resulted to the creation of a blueprint which could be applied to a list of employees now connected with firms in the technology industry. Klein added that previous work experience and educational qualifications together with the work the person is doing at the startup he or she works in now factored greatly in an individual's propensity to become a startup founder himself or herself, the report said.
Klein said, "We had 43 percent of the pool that we have worked at a venture-backed company immediately before founding a company. I would have thought it would be higher."
Bloomberg sent the emails to the employees but no term sheets or an offer to join the company as an entrepreneur-in-residence were included. Klein said sending the emails were their way of attractively establishing a network among the possible future founders. She said, "Our thought is let's introduce them to other potential co-founders [and] let's have them spend some time with us. It's not necessarily that they're all going to start a business tomorrow."
Klein, who worked from 2000 to 2010 in Softbank, came up with the idea of the predictive tool for possible founders. Klein added, "I like that we're being proactive in thinking about finding the people that might not even know yet that they have the good foundation of being an entrepreneur. This type of thing encourages more people to be founders."
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