VentureXpert Database

From edegan.com
Revision as of 16:46, 22 September 2019 by Ed (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search


This project was conducted by students at Georgetown in the Spring of 2019. It was replaced by the vcdb4 project, conduced by Ed Egan in the Fall of 2019.

Project
VentureXpert Database
Project logo 02.png
Project Information
Has title VentureXpert Database
Has owner Vineet Anne, Khai Nguyen
Has start date
Has deadline date
Has project status Active
Dependent(s): Ecosystem Organization Classifier
Copyright © 2019 edegan.com. All Rights Reserved.

The purpose of this project is to create a new, updated database of venture capital deals, portfolio companies, funds and firms, including information on exits, executives, and other events and entities, called vcdb4. The old VentureXpert Data project created the database vcdb3. Data is retrieved using SDC Platinum, for which we have a license.

Updating data from vcdb4

Using the Researcher RDP account:

  1. Go to: E:\mcnair\Projects\VentureXpert Database\ScriptsForSDCExtract\ and copy all necessary files (for each of them, download the txt, the ssh and the rpt file) to E:\projects\vcdb4.
  2. Open SDC Platinum, input the initial, and create a project description.
  3. Open the ssh file in SDC Platinum and save it as a new file for updating (do not overwrite the old file).
  4. Right-click on the line with the date, and modify to the most current date.
  5. Delete the line that generates the report.
  6. Click the Report tab on top to generate a Custom Report. Refer to the txt document of the pre-upload session for the metrics that need to be collected.
  7. Click OK, OK and then No in response to the window that pops up.
  8. A window should now pop up with the option "Save As". Use that option to save the report as a txt file in the same vcdb4 folder.
  9. Click Execute to generate a rpt file and a txt file for the now-updated session in the vcdb4 folder. This will take some time. Exit the session when it was done (make sure it is saved).
  10. Go to the vcdb4 folder, open the txt file, scroll down to the bottom to delete the footer. Save the footer-less txt document as a new file.
  11. Move everything related to the updated session (ssh, rpt, txt, txt with no footer) to the updated file (all current updated files are in there).

Notes from Ed: I'm not sure about steps 5 and 6! There is no need to remake the report manually. You can use the old report by editing the .ssh file directly to correct the path before loading it, or you can load the existing report inside of SDC once the session is loaded.

After updating all files through SDC, clean up the Data

  1. Download the data from SDC.
  2. Cut off the footers and run it through Normalizer.pl.
  3. Load it into a PostgreSQL database, cleaning it as needed.
  4. Process it in SQL and using Matcher.pl to find IPOs and M&As for VC backed firms, etc.


April 30th:

Current Work

  1. Files Pulled from Old McNair Files:
  • USVCFirms1980-present2019
  • USVCFunds1980-present2019
  • USVCPortCos1980-present2019
  • IPO1980-present
  • MA1980-2018q2-updated
  1. Files we have not pulled/need help processing:

Normalized Files Status Update

  1. Files that are normalized
  • USVCFirms1980-present2019
  • USVCFunds1980-present2019
  • USVCPortCos1980-present2019
  • IPO1980-present
  1. Files that still need to be normalized:
  • MA1980-2018q2-updated - there is a missing .txt file for the MA activity and I am unable to create another one from the .ssh file. Will be working more on it tomorrow. - Vineet


April 16th:

List of files with statuses:

  • USVCFirms1980-present2019 -- Done by Khai
  • USVCFunds1980-present2019 -- Done by Khai
  • USVCPortCos1980-present2019 -- Done by Khai
  • USCompanyLongDescription1980-present -- May require special processing
  • VCFirmsLongDescription -- May require special processing
  • IPO1980-present - Done by Vineet...renamed to IPO1980-April2019
  • MA1980-2018q2-updated - Done by Vineet
  • USVCRound1980-present -- This is the Round-On-One-Line pull. See Retrieving_US_VC_Data_From_SDC#Round_On_One_Line
  • USVC1980-present -- This is the Round pull - Note from Vineet: Tried updating this but it seems the session was saved as USVCPortCos1980-present2019...please advise

We also need:

Notes from Vineet:

- For IPO1980-present, SDC says that there is no matching .rpt file and as a result was not able to load. There is a .rpt file called IPO1980-present-Done.rpt that I believe is the same data as the .ssh file. Should i rename one of them to match the other?

See Retrieving US VC Data From SDC

Update (4/30/19)

Files that have been normalized: IPO, USVC Firms, USVC Firms Branch Office, USVC Funds, USVC PortCos. All these files are in E:\projects\vcdb4\Updated. Each contains:

  • An updated session file
  • A rpt file
  • A txt file
  • A txt file with no foot.
  • A normalized txt file derived from (4).

Currently having issues with MA session. Unable to execute the ssh file in the Updated folder for MA. Displays error message but does not specify what the error is. Next step is to do Fund and PortCo executives. Update: Fund Executives's script has been created, but cannot be executed for some reason (Error message: Out of memory).