YouNoodle founder Bob Goodson is debuting his newest venture Quid this week, which has been in stealth for the past two years. Quid’s data platform aims to map the world’s technologies, allowing companies to gain more insight on specific sectors and to allow government entities to figure out which emerging technologies can better serve their infrastructure. Backed by The Founders Fund, Quid is now in private beta.
Goodson tells me that after seeing how both emerging and modern countries depend on technology produced by private companies, he saw a gap in how this data about these companies and their products are being served to governments. And this data, Goodson says, can also be used by companies to gain insight on new technologies emerging, determine possible acquisition targets or to evaluate a competitive landscape.
Here’s the description of the startup from Quid’s website: Disruptive technology shapes the world, defining political, military, financial, and commercial opportunities and threats. Whether originating in academic research, in National Labs, or in privately-held or public companies, these technologies can emerge with explosive impact, creating and destroying value. Quid is developing quantitative and visualization tools that make these fast-moving, global technology developments visible, navigable, and understandable.
With a team of 40 engineers and scientists from around the world, Goodson says that he’s trying to create a map of the worlds technologies to see how they are related, comparing data sets with other data sets. The data that Quid mines includes the nature of a technology from a company, growth numbers, number of employees, legal filings, SEC documents, and more. For example, at a very basic level Quid’s technology and algorithms would identify that Microsoft offers a competitive product (the browser) with Google and Firefox.
Quid’s data is accessed by companies and government entities via a web application that allows users to run reports and more. And Quid already has a number of high-profile clients using its platform, including Microsoft. Quid will face competition from Gartner and Forrester.
Goodsen is maintaining YouNoodle, which aims to promote entrepreneurial development among young people across the world, as a separate entity.