One year of tracking talents

Exactly one year ago, Specter started tracking millions of talented individuals on a daily basis.

Why did we do this?
1. To identify great new companies before anyone else.
2. To track talent flows on a global level.

Let’s zoom in on this for a second.
1. Why do we want to be the first ones to know? Because speed really matters. The current VC landscape is truly hyper competitive.
2. Why do we track talent flows? Because the ability to attract top talent is essential to company success.

How do we do this?
1. We use a wide variety of sources.
2. We have built a proprietary talent scoring algorithm.

Again, let’s zoom in on this.
1. The best signals come from non-obvious sources. We always think of it as a sequence. What do people do when they start a new company? And no, most people don’t start by updating their LinkedIn profile.
2. At a scale (of millions of people) you need to have a sophisticated system to evaluate and identify meaningful signals. Scoring companies or products is relatively easy, scoring humans is much more difficult.

So, let’s talk about our talent tracking.

1. In one year, Specter identified 11,230 meaningful talent signals. That is 216 signals per week, 43 signals per (working) day, 2 signals per hour.
   So, literally every hour Specter flags at least two important talent signals.
2. We have identified over 7,000 brand new companies launched by great talents. And it’s good to note that about half of the new companies that Specter detected, are not listed on any other startup database.
3. In addition, Specter has identified over 4,300 important job changes (i.e. an exceptional talent joining or leaving a startup).

Now, let’s give you some stats.

283 New Company signals lead to funding so far, with a total of $1.2B raised.

Meaning, Specter has flagged an interesting talent who went on to raise VC funding, every single day.

On average, the founders that Specter featured raised their round 105 days AFTER they were featured.

That’s almost a 4 month time advantage.

Interesting fact: Roughly 67% of those who raised were previous founders.

Specter also detects New Role signals.

If the VP of Engineering at Slack leaves his job, and joins a new startup as the VP of Engineering, we want to know about it.

So far, 109 of these New Role signals have lead to rounds, ranging from
Pre-Seed to Series B, totaling $3.8 billion dollars.

If we zoom out, and take a look across all funding types, 352 New Role signals lead to funding rounds — resulting in $27 billion in funds raised.

On average, the companies that these exceptional talents joined, raised 118 days after Specter featured the signal.

So what does this mean?

Specter featured at least 1 successful signal that went on to raise, every single day.

$5.1 billion dollars (and counting) have been invested in early-stage companies, by some of the most successful funds in the world — on average, 111 days after Specter featured them.

In some cases, it’s even longer.

What have we learned?

1. Talent tracking and scoring is the most important puzzle piece in early stage sourcing, and a very important signal for growth stage deals.
2. One-size doesn’t always fit all. That is why Specter tailors the talent tracking to the specific needs of its clients.

That is why we are doubling down.

1. We are heavily expanding our coverage — both in terms of geography and sources. We will continue building the biggest global talent engine.
2. We are adding more data-points and features — Stay tuned for more information.
3. And, we are about to announce a major partnership very soon.
   Again, stay tuned 👻🚀