Humans in our very nature are social creatures. It is natural for us to form groups and work together. In fact, according to the Cooperative Eye hypothesis, the distinctive features that help highlight our eyes evolved partly to help us follow each others’ gazes when communicating or when cooperating with one another on tasks requiring close contact.
Our ability to communicate and work together has proven to be incredibly advantageous in the natural world, and it seems that the world of business is no different. Programs like STIR, a program that connects startups with government agencies to develop technology products that address civic challenges, continues to demonstrate the benefit of cooperation between startups and corporations, as they bring tech innovation to public services. Despite being competitors, even startups like Uber will potentially cooperate with local government and transportation, for the greater good.
But in order for collaboration to begin, the frameworks must be in place to facilitate these alliances. That is why programs such as STIR are so important. Fortunately, there are many organizations that see the benefit of collaboration and are working hard to unify and encourage hardworking startups.
One of which is VentureRadar, a platform that monitors data on innovation around the globe, discovering and ranking companies, making them visible to potential partners, customers, and investors. In a recent interview with The Sociable, the founder, Andrew Thomson, explained how the business is making a difference in the world of startups and business.
Andrew Thomson
“VentureRadar crawls more than 5 million websites per month to discover new companies and track the progress of already known companies. We process this information using big data analytics, proprietary algorithms, machine learning and expert human interpretation.”
Thomson adds “Our search engine and custom search services are both underpinned by this system. (1) Our search engine uses this system to pro-actively discover, rank and track companies in popular innovation and technology domains. (2) For custom search projects, our analysts ‘tune’ this system so it can be used to rapidly screen and identify large volumes of potential candidates in clients’ specific areas of interest. With more than 55,000 registered users, the VentureRadar search engine is an invaluable tool for business professionals to discover, track and research companies globally.”
Just as the eye may have developed to increase cooperation among humans, dedicated organizations like STIR and VentureRadar are working hard to ensure this cooperative nature helps us to produce the best results possible for a future we can all share.
Disclosure: This article includes a client of an Espacio portfolio company
