Classifying venture capital backed open source software startups using publicly available information

This research uses a data mining process and information on companies' websites to classify 61 venture capital (VC) backed open source software (OSS) startups. It delivers a classification for OSS startups and observations about their market offers which are relevant to: (i) top management teams who wish to attract VC funding (ii) Canadian VC investors who do not fund OSS startups (iii) academics who are interested in data mining and (iv) entrepreneurs who need to define their companies' market offers. The results suggest that open source companies seek to concurrently add value to their customers and the external communities on which they depend. They also suggest that the market offers of VC funded startups can be grouped into: (i) products and applications (ii) consulting, training and testing services and (iii) commercial licenses and support. The results from this research are consistent with previous research that classified market offers that rely on open source projects and ways in which companies integrate OSS into their market offers.