Executive Summary

While "Market Fit" creates the opportunity, "Founder DNA" determines the execution. Predict Ventures' PV1 engine quantifies founder potential by analyzing Cognitive Diversity, Execution Velocity, and Team Synarchy. Our data shows that teams with balanced "Technical-Operational-Sales" triads are 3.2x more likely to reach a Series B than teams led by a "Solo Genius."

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The Age-Old Debate: Horse or Jockey?

Ask ten VCs what matters most, and five will say "The Market" (the Horse) while the other five will say "The Founder" (the Jockey).

Historically, evaluating the "Jockey" has been a dark art. It happened over coffee, through "gut feel," or by looking at a pedigree—Stanford, McKinsey, or ex-Google. But by 2026, we’ve learned that pedigree is not a predictor of performance. Some of the greatest failures of the last decade had the "perfect" resumes, while the biggest winners were often outliers who didn't "look the part" in a boardroom.

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Quantifying the "Un-quantifiable"

At Predict Ventures, we’ve moved past the "coffee test." The PV1 engine analyzes founder potential through three distinct, data-backed lenses:

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1. The Power of "Synarchy" (Team Balance)

The "Solo Genius" is a romantic myth that leads to a 70% higher failure rate. Our analysis of 50 years of data shows that the most resilient startups are built on Synarchy—the functional harmony of complementary skills.

• The Metric: We look for the "Golden Triad": a Visionary (CEO), a Builder (CTO), and a Scaler (COO/CMO).
• The Insight: If a founding team is too heavy on one side (e.g., three engineers with no sales experience), the PV Score drops significantly, regardless of how good the code is.

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2. Execution Velocity (EV)

In 2026, the speed of iteration is the only true moat. We don't just look at what a founder has done; we look at how fast they did it.

• The Metric: PV1 tracks "Milestone Compression"—how quickly a team moves from an idea to a prototype, and from a prototype to a first paid pilot.
• The Insight: High EV is a leading indicator of "Resilience DNA." Founders who iterate 2x faster than their peers have a 60% higher probability of surviving a market downturn.

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3. Founder-Market Fit (FMF)

Does the founder have an "Unfair Advantage" in this specific vertical?

• The Metric: We cross-reference the founder’s deep-domain experience against the technical complexity of the problem.
• The Insight: A "Generalist" founder might succeed in Consumer Tech, but in DeepTech or Biotech, FMF is non-negotiable. The PV1 engine flags "Imposter Risk" by analyzing the gap between a founder’s expertise and the market’s barriers to entry.

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The 2026 Reality: Experience + Evidence

We aren't here to replace the human connection. We are here to ensure that when you "bet on the Jockey," you aren't betting on a resume—you’re betting on a proven set of behavioral and execution patterns that lead to $100M+ outcomes.

Success leaves tracks. We just built the engine that follows them.

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