As Silicon Valley’s biggest start-ups stay private for longer than ever before, there is a new face that is becoming an increasingly familiar sight: the research analyst.

随着硅谷(Silicon Valley)大型创业型企业保持非上市企业身份的时间超出以往任何时候，一类新面孔正日益为人们所熟悉：研究分析师。

In an effort to bring more transparency to big private tech companies such as Uber and Airbnb, a growing number of companies are launching research teams to analyse private ventures and produce reports on them.

为了揭开优步(Uber)、Airbnb等大型非上市科技企业的面纱，越来越多的公司着手组建研究团队，以分析这些没上市的创业型企业，撰写关于它们的报告。

Demand for research on start-ups has grown as investment flows into big, late-stage fundraising rounds, which have come to be known as mini-IPOs.

随着创业型企业的后期融资吸引了庞大的资金量——这类融资活动如今被称作迷你IPO——人们对创业型企业相关研究也产生了更多的需求。

Investment in venture-backed start-ups reached $60bn last year, double the level of 2013, as investors such as mutual funds and asset managers enter the scene.

去年，对风投支持的创业型企业的投资规模达到600亿美元，较2013年增长了一倍，共同基金和资产管理公司等投资机构纷纷进入这一领域。

This is a new asset class that is emerging, says Greg Brogger, founder of SharesPost, referring to late-stage tech start-ups. These are the same companies that would have been public at year six or seven in a previous era.

这是一个新兴的资产类别，SharesPost创始人格雷格•布罗格(Greg Brogger)表示，他指的是进入后期阶段的科技创业型企业，在前一个时代，这类企业会在创立六七年时就上市。

These are not start-ups in the garage.

现在这些企业不是车库里的创业型企业。

That new asset class calls for new kinds of research, he argues.

他认为，新的资产类别需要新类型的研究。

SharesPost, which transacts shares in private groups, has launched a research division led by a former RBC analyst.

SharesPost从事非上市企业股票业务，它成立了一个研究部门，由一名前加拿大皇家银行(RBC)分析师领导。

Other private market brokers have taken similar steps.

其他非公开市场经纪商也采取了类似措施。

Scenic Advisement, a boutique adviser and broker, poached BlackRock director Peter Christiansen, a 17-year veteran of the largest asset manager, to lead its research efforts.

专业顾问及经纪公司Scenic Advisement挖来了在最大资产管理公司贝莱德(BlackRock)工作了17年的彼得•克里斯蒂安森(Peter Christiansen)，由其负责相关研究工作。

We need to service our clients and we also need to provide a voice, says Barrett Cohn, managing director at Scenic. Research standards have been absolutely lacking in our space, just because it’s a bit of a new space and also because there are some absolute yahoos out there.

我们需要服务我们的客户，也需要提供意见，Scenic董事总经理巴雷特•科恩(Barrett Cohn)表示，在我们的领域一直缺乏研究标准，因为这在某种程度上算是个新领域，另外有些人绝对是门外汉。

Part of the reason research is so challenging is that start-ups do not publicly disclose financial metrics, such as revenue or net income, making classic Wall Street financial analysis impossible.

此类研究如此具有挑战的部分原因是，创业型企业并不公开披露收入或净利润等财务指标，使得典型的华尔街财务分析没有用武之地。

Much of the research on start-ups focuses instead on sector-level analysis such as trends and competitors, or relies heavily on news reports of leaked financial details.

大部分针对创业型企业的研究集中在行业层面的分析，比如趋势和竞争对手。此类研究也极依赖有关财务信息泄露的新闻报道。

At PitchBook, a research firm founded in 2007, chief executive John Gabbertsees the proliferation in start-up research as a sign of the times as more start-ups achieve billion-dollar valuations.

PitchBook是一家于2007年创立的研究公司，其首席执行官约翰•加伯特(John Gabbert)认为，随着越来越多的创业型企业达到10亿美元估值门槛，针对创业型企业的研究增多是时代的标志。

Private capital markets are becoming more important than they have ever been, Mr Gabbert says. Everyone is becoming interested in these companies.

非公开资本市场变得比以往更加重要，加伯特称，所有人都对这些企业产生兴趣。

There are more of them and it is becoming harder to find the needle in the haystack, which means that using data and data tools is the only way to do that.

这样的企业越来越多，大海捞针变得更加困难，这意味着利用数据和数据工具进行分析是唯一途径。

As one of the oldest companies doing start-up analysis, PitchBook, which sells clients subscriptions to its online database, employs 250 analysts to cull information about private companies.

作为最早从事创业型企业分析的机构之一，PitchBook聘请了250名分析师收集非上市企业的信息。PitchBook向客户提供使用其在线数据库的付费服务。

While financial figures may be impossible for outsiders to obtain, other measures have come to be reference points in the opaque world of start-up finance.

尽管局外人或许不可能获得创业型企业的财务数据，但在这个不透明的创业型企业财务领域，也有其他指标可作为参考。

Company filings in Delaware can reveal the share price of each financing round, for example, and brokers such as Equidate have started putting these online in an easy-to-access format.

比如，特拉华州的公司档案可以查到每一轮融资的股价，Equidate等经纪商开始把这些资料以容易获取的格式传到了网上。

Although researchers say they hope to bring more transparency to a market that is often opaque, no one expects start-ups to begin disclosing their financials in the near future.

尽管研究人员称他们希望为这个通常不透明的市场带来更多透明度，但没有人指望创业型企业不久以后会对外公开其财务状况。

Mr Brogger says: One of the great advantages to staying private is that you don’t have to show your hand.

布罗格称：保持非上市身份的一大优势是你不需要公开。