Paul Singh, D.C.-area native and founder of Silicon Valley–based
500 Startups, has hired his replacement. Though he will no longer be a part of day-to-day operations in the VC firm/accelerator, Singh believes he is leaving the company in “a great place.”
Singh is now hard at work on
Dashboard, his “spinoff” company from 500 Startups.
Dashboard actually predates 500 Startups, as Singh built it in early 2010. The tool was used exclusively by the accelerator until Singh realized he needed to “push it to other VCs.” Now 500 Startups and 20 other VCs, including D.C.-based
Fortify Ventures and Dulles-based
Fishbowl Labs, are Dashboard customers. Singh reports that 30 more are coming on board soon.
“We’ve got five employees,” he says of Dashboard, that are “doing the typical startup grind.”
Dashboard aggregates data about startups and small businesses and makes it available to VC and angel investors. “We want to build the Bloomberg/Motley Fool of the private market,” Singh explains. “Data on startups is sparse and disparate. We look at thousands of small businesses—at Github, at their analytics.”
In return for access to their (aggregated) data, startups and small businesses get access to a community of VCs and angel investors, as well as a set of benchmarks. “That’s the incentive for the business,” Singh says.
Dashboard's core features are free for founders, VCs and mentors. Current clients include "superangels" and limited partners who wish to better understand private markets. "As AngelList makes private markets more accessible to everyone and crowdfunding becomes [more of] a reality," Singh explains, "the number of investors that may want access to our aggregate data begins to rapidly increase."
Pricing for the aggregate data will vary. "We're planning to have something in the $500 per year range for angels or others trying to 'keep an eye' on the private markets," Singh says. "On the opposite end of the spectrum, we'll likely have products in the $500 per month to $10,000 per month range for 'professional' investors."
Singh is looking to hire full-stack engineers and a tech writer/analyst who understands the startup community and is “comfortable digging around large data sites" for Dashboard's offices. He won’t say where exactly those offices will be located…yet.