Issue As value creation moves before the IPO, evaluation shifts to proprietary predictive scores

Summary

As more company value is created before an IPO, the tools used to judge investments are shifting toward proprietary predictive scores. CB Insights argues that because firms stay private longer, investors have less public disclosure to work with and must rely on predictive signals instead. It promotes its own Mosaic score, an algorithmic health rating for private companies, as an example. The firm reports that its top 30 scored companies were 4.7 times more likely to become unicorns than investments made by venture firms it classifies as smart money over a comparable period. On that basis it claims AI and data now outperform traditional venture methods. The evidence, however, comes from the publisher's own product and its own comparison.