An alternative data specialist based in New York has raised more than $11 million in a funding round, as it looks to expand the use of its platform across the institutional investment community.
Thinknum, which was established in 2014, provides a web-sourced alternative data platform to help firms navigate disparate and unstructured data sets and make data-driven investment decisions. The platform captures the digital footprints of more than 400,000 companies globally.
“Over the past several years, we have seen a tremendous response from the early adopters in the financial and corporate communities who understand the power of alternative data and the potential for what datasets from firms like Thinknum can provide,” said Justin Zhen, co-founder and president of Thinknum.
“This new funding round allows us to accelerate our growth and extend our reach into new markets, helping companies use data to uncover opportunities, find impactful solutions to challenges, and better engage on global issues.”
The company’s alternative data platform has been used by major financial institutions for equity research and analysis, including Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Cowen and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Around half of institutional investors are seeking to increase their use of alternative data sources in the coming year, according to research from Greenwich Associates. Richard Johnson, analyst at Greenwich Associates and author of the research, stated that the four billion webpages and 1.2 million terabytes of data currently available on the internet can be a valuable source of information to investors.