I'm intrigued by the fact that the piece highlighted by techstars is simply the number of companies acquired (along with founded, active, and failed). That shouldn't be the metric of success for a company.
I founded a startup to build a big scaleable business. If I end up selling, then it will only be a success if the acquiring team, the impact to our vision, and the economics are all excellent.
If I wanted to compare the incubators, I'd want to see relative user bases, revenue generated, valuations, etc. The proof is in the pudding, and that's the pudding.
I believe their results page is largely automated based off of Crunchbase data. From what I understand it's not necessarily their metrics, but just the ones that people ask about and are fairly easy to access. (Particularly since what you're asking for is sensitive/confidential info!)
Yup, you're right: the data is automated by CrunchBase. It should also be noted that fundings, exits, etc are under-reported, as CrunchBase is generally a little bit behind for two reasons: 1) Not everyone keeps their companies up to date 2) Some people don't want to make much noise with their financial events
Most valuations / acquisition amounts are confidential. I agree, that would be better data to show, but it's just unrealistic to think you can get that.
Techstars should include the actual valuations or acquisition values. Just citing number of "acquisitions" is meaningless these days. I know for at least one company listed as an "acquisition" was basically a failure with a few members of the team being hired together by the "acquirer".
The most striking thing to me when I compare TechStars results to YC results, is that I haven't heard of or used any TechStars companies, but I have used many YC products. Maybe just proximity to the valley though.
