TheFunded penalizes venture capital firms that “game” it

February 11, 2008 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

funded-warning.jpgTheFunded, the site that lets entrepreneurs rate venture capitalists, often with aggressively snarky commentary, has released a new feature to reduce criticism the site is being gamed.

It has created an algorithm that looks for signs VCs are trying to manipulate their rankings to be more positive. It flags apparently guilty firms and puts them in a virtual penalty box. The site’s algorithm is already in effect, listing about a dozen firms among the transgressors, including Fred Wilson’s Union Square Ventures (see profile here) and Europe’s Mangrove Capital Partners.

Over recent months, it’s become clear that many venture capitalists have asked entrepreneurs they’ve backed to submit favorable commentary, so that they look good. This boosts the firm’s rankings on TheFunded’s leaderboard — and has thus plagued TheFunded with credibility questions.

The algorithm, disclosed in an announcement over the weekend on TheFunded’s home page, scans the venture capital firms for suspicious activity. For example, if a disproportionate number of members enter the site to provide a single comment on a given firm’s profile, this sends a red flag to TheFunded’s system. TheFunded looks for other behavior, too, for example, unusual semantic characteristics of the written fund reviews, such as excessive use of exclamation points and superlatives. It also looks at how many entrepreneurs voluntarily admit they were asked by their VC to submit a review (entrepreneurs are asked this when they provide a comment, and they check a box to say they’ve been asked).

After a firm is flagged, TheFunded allows the firm to get only one review every thirty days, a way to dock the fund while TheFunded investigates the matter.

funded-flag.jpgTheFunded has implemented other features too, such as flags to tell users if a commenter appears to have submitted a single comment (such commenters can be considered less trustworthy than a member without such a designation). TheFunded has also given a separate designation to the most trustworthy members, pointing out that they are members of the site and have frequently been agreed with by other members.

Disclosure: VentureBeat has a relationship with TheFunded, which includes cross-linking to each other’s sites.

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  • Arthur Howe
    Whatever. Do you really think their top secret algorithm will be able to catch VCs and their friends who are trying to game the system? Come on. TheFunded is an inherently flawed concept. What I can't understand is why VentureBeat would want to associate itself with TheFunded. This is not journalism; it's hackery.
  • Matt,

    Union Square Ventures is not "my firm". It was formed by Brad Burnham and me and we have recently added Albert Wenger as our third partner. It is a true partnership in every sense of the word.

    As for The Funded's algorithm and our supposed transgression, I certainly did encourage my readers and the companies we have backed to visit The Funded and leave a comment about Union Square.

    I did not tell them what to write and if they only stayed to leave a comment about our firm, well that's unfortunate.

    Fred
  • Fred,

    Union Square Ventures was caught by the algorithm, most likely because of the reasons that you mention in your comment here.

    The problem is that any CEO who is asked by a fund to write a review feels an inherent pressure to write something favorable, even if they are explicitly asked to write something accurate. This dilemma was pointed out to me by an early Member, who forwarded a few emails that he had received from venture capitalists asking for a review. In his words, the very act of asking implied a positive result.

    The Venture Capital industry has a tremendous amount of learning that it can do by listening to the honest feedback by entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs need to know all of the data about the reviews that they are reading. Ultimately, a good balance between the information and the meta-data needs to be struck.
  • Howard Hartenbaum
    I asked all the entrepreneurs that I funded to submit reviews anonymously to thefunded. There was no pressure to review positively. My request to these CEO's drove about 25 new users to thefunded's website, and in return thefunded puts us in a penalty box? I applaud thefunded's efforts, but think that the implementation is off the mark.
  • The problem with sites like TheFunded.com, or any site with user reviews is that the reviewed product will always be at a disadvantage. For every unhappy customer, they tell 9 of their friends, and for every happy one they tell 3. The odds are against the VC's here. Of course the majority of turned away entrepreneurs will put a negative review - it's a form of vengeance. But those that did have a happy experience will have little reason to post anything. They have already researched for information from the site, got what they were looking for and will not likely return without proper incentive.
  • Anonymous CEO
    Heh. For some reason I couldn't sign up, though I've started enough companies to be able to review almost a dozen firm and someone _did_ hit our bio page. After trying twice I just gave up. So who knows how things run over there anyway.

    (though in fact someone (not a partner) from one of those companies asked me if I would write something. Since the reviews are anonymous I would have written what I thought, good and bad. But perhaps the sign-up process uses telepathy and sniffed me out!)
  • Anytime people self-select to voice their opinions, it's gonna get ugly. Just look at right-wing conservative talk shows! Zow, what a bunch of unhappy, disatisfied folks. TheFunded.com is an interesting experiment and one that is changing shape and form in interesting ways. Stay tuned for more Ressi mad scientist antics.