The rise of big data has ushered in a whole host of innovative startups, who all hope their idea will be the one to transform the data landscape forever. However, the startup landscape is a minefield, where even the most brilliant ideas can fall by the wayside without proper implementation and business acumen.

This is where Thomas Thurston comes in. Veteran data scientist, recent venture capitalist and Chief Executive at Growth Science, Thurston believes he has developed a predictive algorithm which can mitigate some of the risk involved with starting and investing in a new business.

“Most businesses fail, and that’s not good for people,” he notes. “People lose their jobs, the economy suffers.”

According to Wired, Thurston has been working on his system- dubbed business model simulation- for the last nine years. The model evaluates business plans statistically rather than intuitively.

Claiming to have predicted the success of Snapchat, Uber, and Airbnb, the model can apparently predict which companies will still be in business after 5 years with 66% accuracy. The model has a higher level of accuracy at predicting which startups will fail to make it to the 5-year mark, managing to correctly predict failure 88% of the time.

Thurston’s dealings with data science to guide growth investments and innovation at Intel Capital helped him initially devise the model in 2006. Now, his firm Growth Science assists enterprises with predictions towards favourable investments. He himself is a partner at the venture found Ironstone Group.

He agrees that the model may not be perfect, but believes that predictive statistical models are paving the way for a better business environment in the future. Growth Science’s top predictions include Arcimoto, Color Genomics and Indow Windows.

(Image credit: Growth Science)