YouNoodle runs an online platform where entrepreneurs find and enter startup competitions and organizers manage submissions; TechCrunch uses it for Startup Battlefield at Disrupt. The company is repositioning from a technology provider for competitions toward a data-focused business that matches startups with larger corporations and potential acquirers. It published the YN1K report on the top 1,000 startups that used YouNoodle in 2013, drawn from more than 17,500 entries across 232 competitions. The report found the average entrepreneur age was 29 and that 28% of founders were women; biotech, healthcare, and science-related startups tended to perform better than social media and web apps, and companies with prototypes outperformed idea-stage ventures. YouNoodle is based in San Francisco and plans to remain there, and it has hired Lael Sturm for business development and Natalie Surowiecki to lead corporate partnerships. YouNoodle is building a prediction tool that analyzes detailed startup data to assign an index score (1–1000) and estimate a company's valuation three years out. The product collects extensive founder, team, financial and concept information via a lengthy questionnaire and was tested and fine‑tuned on roughly 3,000 startups. CEO Bob Goodson says the algorithm produces "highly statistically accurate" results and the company shared sample predictions for companies such as Twitter, Powerset, Slide and others. YouNoodle is preparing to launch the predictor, is currently offering the service for free to startups, and plans to issue certificates of index scores while charging third parties for official access. The company predicted its own valuation at roughly $96 million in 2010 and has provided numerous example predictions showing both accurate and less accurate estimates. YouNoodle has raised one round of financing (amount undisclosed) from Max Levchin, Peter Thiel and The Founders Fund; key employees include Kirill Makharinsky and Rebeca Hwang.

Total raised

$1M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Mar 2014