Noticias / What’s News
Motivación y Objetivos / Motivation and Objectives
Quienes Somos / People
Papers en Progreso / Papers in Progress

Motivación y Objetivos

Existe un conceso generalizado que los contactos sociales y profesionales juegan un papel fundamental en el funcionamiento de los ecosistemas emprendedores en el mundo. Las contactos conforman redes profesionales y sociales, cuyo funcionamiento se vuelve de especial interés para entender el fenómeno de entrepreneurship. Sin embargo, existe muy poca evidencia empírica sobre estas redes, que permitan la investigación científica sobre las mismas. Por otro lado, los medios que existen actualmente para monitorear la actividad emprendedora,  típicamente basada en el uso de encuestas de frecuencia anual, son estadísticamente limitadas y extremadamente costosas de implementar.

La oportunidad que existe para salvar estos problemas es la disponibilidad de información que hoy existe en la web, un medio donde el fenómeno emprendedor está muy presente.

Este proyecto de investigación busca colectar (la mayor cantidad de) data disponible en formato de red sobre la actividad emprendedora a nivel global que permitan tanto hacer un monitoreo de esta actividad como posibilitar el estudio de dichas redes. El proyecto también busca avanzar en el desarrollo de herramientas que permitan analizar las redes de gran tamaño resultantes, y en los indicadores de monitoreo propiamente dichos.

En particular nos proponemos:

i) Desarrollar herramientas de colección de información de un conjunto de sitios de internet que contienen información específica sobre el fenómeno emprendedor.

iii) Colectar datos complementarios sobre los participantes del ecosistema emprendedor de fuentes adicionales, como sus experiencia laboral, su educación, etc.

ii) Popular todos los datos resultantes en una gran base de datos orientada a grafos, que permita más fácilmente el análisis posterior de las redes.

iv) Desarrollar herramientas de análisis de las redes propiamente dicho. Implementar, por ejemplo, la posibilidad de obtener estadísticas de posicionamiento en la red para las startups y emprendedores que se obtengan en la red. Utilizar tecnologías que permitan hacer estos análisis en redes de gran tamaño de una manera eficiente (en la menor cantidad de tiempo posible).

v) Implementar herramientas para monitorear la actividad emprendedora, incluyendo una serie de estadísticos de frecuencia mensual (como por ejemplo número de nuevas startups, nuevas rondas de financiamiento cerradas, nuevos emprendedores, etc.)

Quienes Somos 

Ricardo Pasquini,  PhD candidate IAE Business School, Profesor Adjunto Universidad Austral

Carolina Dams, PhD candidate IAE Business School, Professor of Entrepreneurship. Facultad Ciencias Empresariales Universidad Austral

Virginia Sarria Allende,  Professor of Finance, IAE Business School

Gabriela Robiolo, Profesora de la Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Austral

Juan María Ale Profesor Titular Facultad de Ingeniería Universidad Austral

Masters en DataMining

Adriana Baravalle, Mariana Krause

Contribuyentes Desarrolladores de la Facultad de Ingeniería – Grado

Javier Isoldi, Alejandro Ciatti, Ignacio Nuñez, Felipe Corro, Franco Testori,  Lucas Oromi, Luciano Sartor

Trabajo en Progreso / Work in Progress

• Ricardo Pasquini, Gabriela Robiolo, and Virginia Sarria Allende “Matching in Entrepreneurial Finance Networks” In process of publication

We empirically explore the economics of match formation between startups and investors in an entrepreneurial finance setting which is embedded in a network of connections. Using a massive network of connections compiled from Web based sources, we are able to measure the relative network distance among potential matching partners. We find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that connections allow improved screening of potential partners, as well as moderates search for partners’ frictions. We identify previously unexplored observable complementarities, such as those arising from the experience of investors and founders and from the education profile of founders.

• Ricardo Pasquini and Gabriela Robiolo “The Added-Value of Network Connections in Entrepreneurial Finance”In process of publication

Entrepreneurs are usually exhorted to attract the best networked investors. We revise the importance of this advice by estimating the effects of investors’ networks in the performance of entrepreneurial ventures. We show that this estimation is biased when other relevant connections are not considered such as those established by founders and advisors. To address this problem, we use two original sources of web-based data, resulting in a network of nearly 1 million connections. We conclude that connections add a relative value depending on existent connections. Also that show evidence of decreasing returns to connections when they are above a certain threshold.

• Carolina Dams, Virginia Sarria Allende, Ricardo Pasquini, Gabriela Robiolo “Accelerated female entrepreneurs and their Access to Venture Capital”

Equity financing is an important source of funding for startups. Yet, it is not equally available to all entrepreneurs. Even when male and female entrepreneurs found companies at a similar pace, there is a significant gap in equity funding for female entrepreneurs. Accelerators have the potential to help female founders reduce this gap. This paper shows that Accelerator Programs have direct impact in reducing the barriers female founders face when raising equity financing. Our findings confirm that female entrepreneurs that go through Accelerator Programs increase the chances of receiving equity financing by 30%. Additionally, the study shows that the incremental effect is more pronounced for female than for male entrepreneurs.

• Carolina Dams, Virginia Sarria Allende, Ricardo Pasquini, Gabriela Robiolo “Accelerators, network and Venture Capital”Accelerators are meaningful in different ways: speeding up the learning process of startups teams, improving startups’ business models, enhancing the social capital of their founders, accelerating the time and increasing the chances of raising Venture Capital. Scholars suggest that the improvement in the financing performance of accelerated startups is explained by the positive impact the Accelerator Programs have in the social capital of the founder teams. However, there are no previous empirical studies that confirm this suggestion. Using a unique dataset built with information extracted from AngelList, Seed-DB, Crunchbase and LinkedIn, and using a network graph approach to measure social capital, this paper confirms that startups that go through Accelerator Programs increase the chances of receiving VC financing. The study also proves that accelerated founder teams increase their social capital, measured in terms on degree and centrality of their networks. However, it also proves that this increase in social capital does not explain the improvements in financing performance. In fact, the increase in chances of receiving VC financing is partly explained by the social capital of the founder teams prior to entering the Accelerator Program.

Our Apps

* All apps are of exclusive access of the researchers of this project. Apps have registered access to data sources. Access is for academic use exclusively.

• Crunchella 1.0
  Crunchella is an app that collects data from startups, investors, entrepreneurs and their roles, and build networks suitable for network analysis.
  Status: Work in Progress

• Tangela
  Tangela is an app that collects data from startups, investors, entrepreneurs and their roles, and build networks suitable for network analysis.
  v1.0
  Developers: Javier Isoldi, Alejandro Ciatti, Ignacion Nuñez
  Status: Completed. Deprecated.
  v2.0
  Developers: Ricardo Pasquini, Felipe Corro

• Shelob 1.0
  Shelob is an app that scraps data on education and professional experience for a list of individuals, from public profiles.
  Developers: Franco Testori, Lucas Oromi
  Status: Completed, in use.