START-UP WATCH: WHAT DOES IT CONSIST OF?
START-UP WATCH: WHAT DOES IT CONSIST OF?
Identifying opportunities for partnerships , investments, or the development of new products or services is a key success factor for an innovation-driven company. In this context, startup monitoring involves:
- Detecting the emergence of new businesses in a given sector very early on,
- Then, systematically monitor their economic, financial, commercial and industrial news
- Having a good understanding of the issues in a sector and its evolution over time.
But what exactly is a start-up?
At TKM, we consider a start-up to be any young company with strong growth potential that uses or develops technologies and includes disruptive potential, whether or not it has a strong need for external financing.
However, as part of a monitoring system dedicated to innovation, we are convinced that it is necessary to broaden this definition to include innovative SMEs.
Indeed, from the perspective of a large group, these companies also offer strong innovation capabilities and significant agility , along with considerable industrial, commercial, and financial maturity. For investors, this monitoring will provide valuable insights into potential divestitures or mergers and acquisitions.
START-UP MONITORING: WHAT FOR?
START-UP MONITORING: WHAT FOR?
Understanding market dynamics is crucial for making informed strategic decisions . Startup monitoring contributes to your ability to map the innovation ecosystem around your business, identifying emerging players, their partnerships, and their activities early on.
This mapping makes it possible to identify not only promising start-ups, but also to understand their relationships with other companies , the investors who support them and the strategic alliances they develop.
This comprehensive view allows you to anticipate market movements, seize good opportunities before your competitors, and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Here are some examples of applying best practices for robust start-up monitoring…
Analyze the innovation potential of an economic territory
For local authorities , clusters or groups , conducting start-up monitoring provides an overview of innovative companies in your geographical area or field of interest.
This monitoring carried out on a larger scale also allows you to position yourself in the competition for territorial attractiveness , and to refine your detailed understanding of the smart specialisation strategies of large agglomerations or territories at the national, European or global level.
To stimulate and strengthen cooperation across the economic territory
Territories play a crucial role for tech start-ups seeking new opportunities, as well as for large companies constantly seeking innovation.
In the hands of a local authority , start-up monitoring also proves to be a decisive tool for connecting them , creating business opportunities and promoting job creation at the heart of your territory.
Initiating collaborations
For large groups , in a logic of Open innovation or innovation detection you will seek to understand, through start-ups, the innovation trends in your markets of interest.
From an R&D perspective, start-up monitoring allows you to detect new technologies, solutions to a technical problem that your teams are encountering, or even a search for optimization of a process or material currently in use.
Optimize your investments and your equity portfolio
For investors , startup monitoring is an essential tool for optimizing portfolios . By detecting the emergence of startups early on, then monitoring their fundraising rounds, patents they file, as well as their news and commercial successes, you can identify and track the most promising companies.
By having benchmark data on similar operations carried out by other start-ups around the world, and by completing the competitive review of your current investments or targets, you increase your chances of selecting start-ups with high growth potential .
This monitoring also allows investors to identify potential exits either in the form of partners or colleagues who intervene in subsequent rounds to yours or to identify other start-ups to build up .
Increase your chances of raising funds quickly
For a startup , this monitoring primarily allows you to find other startups with which to initiate collaborations. Effectively populating your young company's profile on a monitoring platform also enhances your visibility to large corporations and investors.
If you are preparing a fundraising round or are in strategic review, start-up monitoring allows you to have a much more complete view of your competitors , their application markets as well as the fundraising rounds they have carried out and the investors active in your market.
This in-depth knowledge of your sector and your competitors is essential to structuring your value proposition , refining your fundraising strategy and being unbeatable in front of investors when pitching your project.
THE CHALLENGES TO OVERCOME FOR EFFECTIVE START-UP MONITORING
THE CHALLENGES TO OVERCOME FOR EFFECTIVE START-UP MONITORINGStartup monitoring involves several challenges that can make it complex.
The volume of information to monitor in order to detect them is immense, and the sources are scattered across a multitude of sites. Information noise —that is, the amount of irrelevant data among everything your monitoring channels report daily—complicates the task and requires powerful (AI) filtering and sorting tools. Furthermore, information about startups evolves very rapidly, quickly rendering the data you have obsolete.
To overcome these challenges and to ensure that your start-up monitoring is useful without taking up too much of your time, it has become necessary to equip yourself with powerful and specialized tools.
Did you know ?
30 Billion
30 billion is, on average, the amount of information you would have to process each year if you decided to monitor only the websites of finance and investment professionals worldwide…
SKOPAI: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR EFFECTIVE START-UP MONITORING
Skopai is a SaaS platform developed since 2017 by the eponymous Grenoble-based start-up and acquired by TKM in 2024. Specializing in the collection and analysis of data on start-ups , it already lists more than 200,000 start-ups and innovative companies worldwide , across all sectors.
How does it work?
Based on artificial intelligence that extracts and enriches relevant information from the systematic monitoring it performs on strategic sectors of the Web, Skopai offers an online platform (SaaS) that provides access to a comprehensive and detailed view of startups worldwide and across all sectors.
Where does Skopai get its information about start-ups? ?
Skopai constantly screens the Web and captures useful information it detects on sites dealing with technology and start-up news: incubators or accelerators, trade shows, conferences, thematic directories, but also the specialized press, investor sites, global databases of scientific and technological information, financial information sources…
Skopai has thus woven a gigantic spider web . Its algorithms then allow it to detect all potentially relevant information, sort it, filter it, and then format it to make it accessible in a concise online format on your dedicated space on the platform.
With an annual subscription , you gain access to the online platform and, in just a few clicks, you can:
- Access the global database of Startups : access information relating to more than 200,000 startups across all sectors and follow their news.
- Define your personalized scope: your "landscapes": an expert competitive intelligence analyst will help you define the precise scope of the companies that interest you (sector of activity, technology, geographic area, etc.). You will then have a dynamic map of startups matching your criteria, personalized monitoring, and at the end of the year, a trend observatory on your favorite topics.
- Automated monitoring: in a few clicks, you can set up alerts on your favorite companies , on your landscapes or on events that are particularly interesting to you (fundraising, filing of a new patent, participation in a trade show, etc.).
Why define surveillance perimeters?
If you lead R&D at a medical company, you probably won't find it worthwhile to monitor nuclear or aerospace startups. That's why Skopai allows you to define your preferred monitoring areas and receive priority updates on those areas.
At Skopai, we call this a "Landscape." It allows you to group and immediately find all the information about the companies and sectors that matter to you.
Configure as many Landscapes as needed and don't hesitate to call on our expertise of over 20 years to help you! Selecting by keywords and technological domains can quickly become complex: TKM is there to support you.
a summary of the latest news from your Landscapes directly in your inbox (new startups created, fundraising rounds, etc.). You can also add specific startups to your favorites , follow their news in real time, and be notified of interesting information!
Collect and structure data easily
Once the scope is defined, Skopai collects data scattered across the web from various formal and informal sources. Skopai's artificial intelligence algorithms organize this data to provide a comprehensive profile of each startup . This includes information on patents , partnerships , fundraising , and other critical data.
A visual indicator allows you to quickly assess the maturity level of a technology using the TRL ( Technology Readiness Level ) scale, as well as its commercial maturity and its investment maturity level.
Share the results of your monitoring internally or with your partners
The collaborative functionality allows you to work closely with colleagues, share useful information, analyze it, and thus inform your innovation strategies. Skopai also makes it easy to export your research results in Excel format , facilitating sharing and further analysis.
Monitoring startups is essential to remain competitive. However, this task can be complex and time-consuming without the right tools .
Open Innovation processes , guide your investment strategies, inform your R&D strategies, understand your competitors, or analyze the innovation strength of an economic territory.
By using Skopai, you will not only save time , but also make more informed strategic decisions .
VIEW
THE ECOSYSTEM
BEING UP-TO-DATE ON
INNOVATIONS
IDENTIFY THE
NEW ENTRANTS
DETECT
START-UPS
QUALIFY
START-UPS
TO WATCH
THE DEALS
Investing in a high-performing start-up monitoring tool like Skopai means giving yourself the means to seize innovation opportunities before competitors and to build a solid and sustainable innovation strategy.
Do you want to get ahead of the curve?
