Kensho, a NYC-based provider of a cloud intelligent computer systems capable of answering complex financial and market research questions posed in natural language, raised $10m in seed funding.
Backers included General Catalyst, New Enterprise Associates, Accel Partners, Google Ventures, Devonshire Investors (the private equity arm affiliated with Fidelity Investments), and other VCs.
Led by Daniel Nadler, CEO, Kensho, Pete Kruskall, CTO, Nicolai Krakowiak, Lead Engineer, Kensho is advancing “Warren”, a virtual market research assistant, which aims to shorten traditional investment research cycles from days to minutes by answering distinct types of natural language questions about the impact of global events on asset prices.
Built on NASDAQ OMX FinQloud, a cloud computing platform designed exclusively for the financial services sector, the service is currently being tested by a select set of asset managers and research teams. It will be able to answer 100 million distinct types of complex financial questions by the end of 2014.
According to a note, typical questions can be:
“What happens to the share prices of energy companies when oil trades above $100 a barrel and political unrest has recently occurred in the Middle East?”
“What happens to Samsung, the South Korean stock market, and U.S. defense stocks in the 48 hours following North Korean nuclear tests and long range missile launches?”
“What happens to Home Depot, home builder stocks, and cement company share prices following Category 4 hurricane landfalls in the continental U.S.?”
“How do credit card company stocks react after the discovery of major credit card breaches?”
FinSMEs
22/01/2014