FinFluence
An Interactive Dashboard for Venture Capital Insights
Did you miss the AI rally? Use FinFluence not to miss the next one!
Investors trust well-known VC funds like Sequoia Capital, which has backed numerous top unicorns like Nvidia, Reddit, YouTube, etc. If such funds support a startup in a particular industry, it signals high potential for that industry. FinFluence leverages this concept by visualizing the valuation data of unicorns backed by prominent VC funds, helping investors identify promising sectors.
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ROLE
User Experience Designer
STAKEHOLDERS
Naimul MD Houque
DURATION
October 2025 - December 2025
Why FinFluence?
Wall Street uses heavy data analysis to determine sector investability.
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This includes data like revenue growth, profit margins, and market size, as well as macroeconomic indicators like GDP growth and consumer trends.
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For newer startups, they also examine venture capital trends, funding rounds, and competitive landscapes to identify high-growth sectors.
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This further translates into financial recommendations for institutional and retail investors.
For rookie investors, such in-depth analysis of companies can be costly and time-consuming. instead they can identify emerging sectors with high potential by focusing solely on sector-wise valuations with funding patterns amongst famous VC funds.
How it FinFluences?
FinFluence uses valuation data from the Unicorn dataset, which contains the valuations of startups worth more than 1 billion dollars, backed by renowned VC funds like Sequoia Capital, PayPal Ventures, and SoftBank.
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These prestigious VC funds have a track record of identifying high-potential startups with their investments signifying trust and credibility boosting investor confidence in those companies.
FinFluence can help answer critical questions:
"Is AI still at the forefront of investments? What other industries are THE NEXT BIG THING?"
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By breaking down valuations, sectors, and regional trends, the visualization provides a “reality check” on global startup activity, to make better-informed decisions while investing, building, or just staying ahead of the curve.
Literature Review
Research highlights how tools that model investor-business-market dynamics simplify decision-making for venture capitalists and angel investors.
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From generative AI to Industry 4.0, research consistently shows how historical funding trends can reveal the “next big thing.” offering a roadmap for informed investment planning.
Read the detailed Literature Review on Medium
With inspiration from these studies, FinFluence bridges the gap between complex data and actionable insights, enabling investors to discover tomorrow’s opportunities today.
Working with Tableau
The Unicorn Companies dataset captures key attributes essential for analyzing startup investment trends i.e. Valuation, Country, City, Industry, and VC Investors — guiding the design of five distinct visualization views.
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Tailored for retail investors unknown to complex financial jargon, it began with straightforward visualizations like pie and bar charts to highlight VC-funded sectors.
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Gradually introduced more complex visuals, such as choropleth maps and node networks, to uncover deeper insights.
Visualizing this dataset offers a unique way to understand the sectors where the VC money is flowing. Whether it’s technology, healthcare, or e-commerce, this tool highlights the industries commanding attention and driving rapid growth.
Version 1.0
Initially the Tableau dashboard was divided into two main visualizations​
Distribution of VC Fund investments through a Sankey Diagram, visualizing the investment flow across three levels i.e. VC Funds - Sectors - Companies.
An overview of sectors and startups that have received VC funding, showcasing sector valuations broken down by the countries. ​
The dashboard layout begins with a two-layer pie chart on the top left. The inner circle represents the total valuation of $3,839 billion, while the outer ring displays sector-wise valuations.
To its right, a word cloud showcases trending sectors supported by VC funds, with the intensity of green indicating each sector’s valuation range — providing a quick snapshot of VC investment preferences.
In the top-right corner, a world map uses a white-to-green gradient to visualize global valuation distribution by country, highlighting the leading markets such as the USA, China, and India.
The map also functions as an interactive filter as shown above. Selecting a country displays sector valuations specific to that location reloading, the pie chart, word cloud, and bar chart at the bottom dynamically.
The bar chart at the bottom visually represents each sector and the total valuation of companies within it, with different colors representing each country (e.g., the U.S. in red, China in blue), offering a clear, country-specific breakdown of sector investments.
The second visualization was focused on the company-wise and sector-wise investments made by the top 4 VC Funds (i.e. Sequoia Capital, Y-Combinator, Softbank, PayPal Ventures) using a Sankey Diagram.
Hovering over the shaded regions gives details on the valuation of a startup funded by a VC Fund hinting at the investment preferences of the VC funds.
Usability Testing
User interviews revealed that the dashboard’s design was generally effective, with clear color contrasts and interactive elements like the word cloud and map filter enhancing usability. Most tasks, such as identifying top industries or regional investments, were completed quickly.
However, the dark background and dense data in the stacked bar chart posed readability challenges. Feedback on the Sankey Diagram was mixed — while many appreciated its ability to show VC investment flows, smaller sections were seen as cluttered and harder to interpret.
You can view the detailed usability evaluation here.
What's working!
Clarity Rating
4/5
Avg. Interaction Time: 31.5 seconds
Strong Decision Making Support
Effective Color Contrast
What's not working?
Light Theme (Colors)
Time Period Filtering
Stacked Bar Chart Overwhelming
Version 2.0
To address the usability issues, the final iteration of FinFluence:
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Combined the Dashboard and the Sankey diagram into a single visualization eliminating the need for users to jump between them.
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Configured the horizontal bar chart showcasing sectoral valuations of only the top 5 high-valuation countries.
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Modified the Sankey Diagram to focus on the top 3 invested sectors instead of all the sectors giving a more concise and on-point informative view to the users.
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Added a ‘Year of Date Joined’ and a ‘VC Funds’ filter to the dashboard making the visualization more interactive for its audience.
You can view the detailed usability evaluation here.
Reflections
Working with Tableau
As a designer, working with data visualization can be complex, especially when learning to manage data segregation and explore new visualization tools. However, this journey was an enjoyable one. Learning Tableau turned out to be a smooth experience, thanks to YouTube tutorials and ChatGPT.
Understanding Financial Data
Being passionate about investing, I’ve always wanted to dive into a financial project. Working on FinFluence helped me understand how to handle detailed financial data, such as company valuations. It also clarified the key terms used to assess the health of unicorn startups, providing valuable insights for guiding investor decisions.
Design Style for Data Visualization
Creating dashboards is always an enjoyable process, especially in design tools like Figma, where working with colors is more intuitive. However, designing for data visualization requires clarity to ensure graphs and visual elements are easy to interpret. Dashboards often contain multiple visual elements, so they should be designed in a way that prevents users from feeling overwhelmed, making it easier to understand the story the data tells.