chances are, you'll never get access to quality data that would allow you to make an informed decision. what you can do is look at the quality of investors in

chances are, you'll never get access to quality data that would allow you to make an informed decision. what you can do is look at the quality of investors in a start-up, and infer the quality of the opportunity. if the start-up has big name investors (a16z, bessemer, sequioa), chances are that the very smart people at those funds deduced the risk worth taking, and you probably should too. if the investors are funds and people that you've never heard of, its likely that the risk was too high or upside too low to be of interest to mainstream investors.