Be part of the founding cohort
Know how your portfolio performs against the market.
Quarterly, stage-matched, sector-specific benchmarks built from portfolio company data. Understand where your portfolio stands, not just individual companies.
The information gap
Benchmarking early-stage companies is harder than it should be.
Public company comps and survey-based reports don't reflect what early-stage companies look like from the inside. The data that does exist is either too broad to be useful or locked inside a vendor's proprietary system.
Between board meetings, problems compound.
Board meetings are quarterly. Issues surface monthly. Most investors don't have the bandwidth to track operating metrics across 15 to 30 portfolio companies in real time, which means problems show up later than they should.
Numbers without context mislead.
A 1.8x burn multiple means different things at different stages, in different sectors, and at different ARR levels. Without stage- and sector-specific reference points, the number tells you very little on its own.
Nobody is calculating the same thing.
Gross margin at one fund is not gross margin at another. Portfolio companies are calculating the same metrics differently, which means comparisons are often flawed before they even start. Shared definitions are the foundation the industry is missing.
Portfolio-wide patterns stay invisible.
When several portfolio companies share a structural weakness, it rarely surfaces until it shows up across multiple board meetings. Earlier visibility means earlier intervention.
What you get
Know what good looks like at every stage.
A peer reference point for every conversation about portfolio performance. Whether you're sitting across from a founder, preparing a fund update, or trying to understand whether a number is a problem or just noise, the benchmark gives you something concrete to work from.
01
Stage-matched financial benchmarks
Gross margin, burn multiple, revenue per FTE, ARR growth, and runway compared against peers at the same stage in the same sector.
02
Shared metric definitions
Every metric comes with a standardized definition, so when you compare gross margin across companies, you're comparing the same thing. Founding participants will establish the definitions that the broader dataset is built on.
03
Benchmark evolution over time
See whether a company is moving toward or away from stage-appropriate benchmarks between reporting periods, not just where it stands today.
04
Cross-portfolio view
An aggregated view of how your portfolio companies compare to each other and to stage peers. Useful for spotting shared gaps before they become individual problems.
05
Quarterly data cadence
Benchmarks refresh each quarter as new data comes in, so comparisons stay relevant as companies grow and markets shift.
The data cooperative
The tool already has data. Participating makes it sharper.
512Financial contributes anonymized financial and operating data from our investor-backed company engagements as the anchor dataset. Participating investors contribute anonymized data from their own portfolios and receive access to the benchmarking dashboard in return. The more funds that contribute, the more granular and sector-specific the benchmarks become.
The anchor dataset
50+
portfolio companies in the anchor dataset
Seed–C
stage coverage
9
core operating metrics tracked
Quarterly
data refresh cycle
01
Complete the participation form
Tell us about your fund's stage focus, sector concentration, and portfolio size. We'll confirm whether the current benchmark coverage is a fit before asking for anything else.
02
Share a standardized operating snapshot
We provide a clean data template covering key financial and operational metrics for each portfolio company you want to include. Participation is company-by-company: you can include all or a subset of your portfolio.
03
Receive full platform access
Once your data is processed and anonymized into the data set, you receive access to the full benchmarking platform. Single-company views, cross-portfolio comparisons, and longitudinal tracking are all available.
04
Refresh quarterly
Participating firms update their portfolio data on a quarterly cadence. Access remains active as long as data contributions are current.
Founding cohort
This is an investor-led project. We're looking for funds that want to build it with us.
512Financial is contributing an anchor dataset and coordinating the effort. Participation is free. What we're asking for is a commitment to contribute anonymized portfolio data on a quarterly basis and a genuine interest in making this resource useful for the funds and companies involved.
Funds that participate early help shape which metrics, stages, and sectors get prioritized as the tool develops. They also help establish the shared metric definitions the entire dataset is built on.
Get involved
Tell us about your fund.
We'll confirm fit and be in touch within 3 business days.