- A San Francisco venture firm developed a proprietary model it calls “moneyball for venture capital.”
- The firm is revealing 19 exceptional female investors with a keen eye for identifying future unicorns.
- Women still comprise only about 11% of investing partners at US VC firms.
Even though venture capitalists invest in tech companies, most VCs are still decidedly low-tech, relying on gut, intuition, and personal relationships to make investment decisions.
TRAC, a San Francisco-based early-stage firm cofounded by Fred Campbell, Joseph Aaron, Scott Pyne, Steve Marek, and Dick Fredericks, aims to take a more systematic approach. It developed a proprietary model it calls “Moneyball for venture capital” that uses AI to predict which early-stage startups are most likely to become unicorns, which are companies valued at more than a billion dollars.
“At TRAC, we are in the prediction business,” said Aaron. “Data is our investment committee and AI is our MO. We are 100% data-driven.”
Key to the model is a very small group of 261 early investors it labels “SuperForecasters,” which the firm has found can predict with a remarkable degree which young companies will someday mature into unicorns.
The firm has kept the names a closely guarded secret, but earlier this year, BI revealed 30 of the SuperForecasters. Only two women were on the list, reflecting the fact that women still make up only about 11% of investing partners at US VC firms, according to a study by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Now, TRAC is sharing 19 exceptional female investors who its model shows are well on their way to being SuperForecasters or in the case of Stephanie Zhan, Natalie Diggins, and Shruti Gandhi, are already there.
“By following this methodology, we aim to highlight the most promising and active new women venture capital investors who are making significant impacts in the industry,” Aaron said.
