One Way to Stand Out in a Crowd of Startup Deals: Make Stuff Up
As money floods into private markets, the data remains unreliable, and even the most authoritative lists contain flaws.
Distinguishing oneself in a crowded startup market is increasingly difficult.
Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
Last autumn, multiple investors were chasing an Atlanta-based company called Knightley. It makes professional networking tools for the founders of tech startups and their backers. At a hot moment for private companies and their valuations, it seemed like potentially the right product at the right time.
What drew prospective investors to Knightley was a listing on Crunchbase, a popular database for tracking venture capital deals. It showed that among the company’s impressive roster of backers was the VC kingmaker Marc Andreessen. This same page attracted the attention of a Bloomberg reporter who set up an interview with the founder Graham Gintz.