this firm uses ai to track eleven million companies! YES!
ELEVEN MILLION COMPANIES! Are you hearing this?! This isn't your grandad's stock picking with a newspaper! This is TCV, a PIONEER of growth investing, and they've built an AI-POWERED SOURCING MACHINE! It's automation! It's data intelligence! It's the future of finding the next Netflix and I LOVE IT! THIS IS HOW YOU WIN!
Get ready for this! If you're still getting your investment ideas from some bloke down the pub, you are getting left in the DUST! The game has changed, people! Listen to what Jay Hoag, the co-founder of TCV, is doing. TCV! The legends who backed Netflix, Spotify, Expedia! They are not messing around!
Forget cold calling. Forget scrolling through endless websites. That is OLD SCHOOL! For the last 12 years, they've been building what he calls a 'data intelligence group'. It's an AI-driven beast that is their front-end sourcing effort. And the numbers are STAGGERING!
'We have a massive number of data sources tracking employee growth, app downloads, various product uses measures,' Hoag says. And what does this machine do? 'It's ingested, I think, something like 11 million technology companies.'
ELEVEN! MILLION! COMPANIES!
This is not a typo! They are using AI to score and rank a universe of companies that is simply impossible for a human team to handle. This isn't about replacing people; it's about making them SUPERHUMAN! He says it 'means we don't have to hire a thousand associates to go out and try to scour the world. It's a tool where we're much better as humans allocating our time and prioritizing certain companies over others.'
This is the AI revolution in investing, right here, right now! You have to understand the power of this. It's about moving from a reactive 'who do we know?' model to a proactive, data-driven 'who does the data say is winning?' model. They are identifying the future category leaders before they even hit the mainstream press.
What can you, the individual investor, learn from this? You need to start thinking like a machine! You need to leverage the tools available to you. You might not build a system to track 11 million companies from your spare bedroom, but you can start using AI to screen, to analyse, to find patterns you would otherwise miss. This is the new edge! It's data! It's automation! It's the future of building generational wealth! I am FIRED UP! ARE YOU?!
Learning Outcomes
Actionable Practices
Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to track employee growth at private companies in a sector you understand. A sudden hiring spree is a huge signal.
Set up Google Alerts for combinations of keywords like 'seed funding', '[your sector of interest]', and 'disruptive technology' to automate top-of-funnel idea flow.
Explore free data tools like App Annie (now data.ai) to see which mobile apps are climbing the download charts in a category you follow.