there are other factors VCs look at, but innovativeness or unique value proposition is certainly a big one.

unique value proposition, growth potential, characteristics of the entrepreneur, market, strategy, etc.

you can measure innovativeness, and simply assume innovativeness will lead to and result in product innovation.

unlike innovation in general, product innovation should be context specific in my mind. innovativeness in a particular market, relative to other products. thus, you should also be able to start with a innovativeness measure, and adapt it, by making it relative to incumbent products and competitors.

Following on what Mr. Bernard said, I recommend focusing on innovation based entrepreneurs, the most successful ones at least, what their products were, how they differed from their competition, is it considered radical or incremental innovation. If you have this question answered (You can answer it by interviewing them), I believe it paves the way to answering your question.

Another factor then that you can add to clean your data, is: how many were 1st time entrepreneurs, and how many were serial entrepreneurs. Because in many cases, the portfolio of the entrepreneur is as important as the innovative-ness of the product he is presenting.

This way, you know that 1st time entrepreneurs only have their product to present, unlike serial entrepreneurs with 1 or 2 successful or ongoing start-ups.

Hi,

I may suggest some old papers by Shlomo Maital --

1) Amnon Frenkel, Tomas Reiss, Shlomo Maital, Hariolf Grupp. "Technometric Evaluation and Technology Policy: The Case of Biodiagnostic Kits in Israel ". Research Policy, 23 (1994), pp. 281-292.

2) Hariolf Grupp and Shlomo Maital. "Perceived Innovation of Israel's Largest Firms: An Empirical Study". Technovation, 2000.

3) Amnon Frenkel, Hariolf Grupp, Shlomo Maital. "Measuring Dynamic Technical Change: a Technometric Approach". International Journal of Technology Management, 2000

4) Aviv Shoham, Shlomo Maital, Hariolf Grupp, and Sharon Lifshitz. "Technometric Benchmarking: Identifying Sources of Superior Customer Value." Journal of Global Marketing, 16 (1/2), 2003.

4) Knut Koschatzky, Amnon Frenkel, Hariolf Grupp, Shlomo Maital, "A Technometric Assessment of Sensor Technology in Israel vs. Europe, the United States & Japan". International Journal for Management of Technology, nos. 5/6, vol. 11, 1996, pp. 667-686.