Street Contxt, a fintech company that helps brokerages, independent research providers and asset managers distribute, manage, unbundle and value research, has secured an investment by a funding consortium led by existing investor Joe Lonsdale of 8VC and including Point72 Ventures.
The round also includes substantial contributions from Palm Drive Capital, a New York-based VC firm that helps build strategic relationships in the Greater China Region; Portag3 Ventures, a member of the Power Financial Corporation group of companies; and other unnamed funds and industry veterans, which brings total funding raised to date to USD15 million.
Additional institutional participants in the consortium will be announced over the coming months. Street Contxt is already providing substantial services to the sell side and will use the investment to further develop its buy side offering, currently live in private beta with select clients, with a full launch scheduled for mid-2017.
Street Contxt brings transparency, accountability, and control to the research and institutional content distribution process – across sales, trading, research, and macro commentary – helping firms achieve scale and stay ahead of changing regulations, such as MAR and MiFID II.
Currently, more than 180,000 global market participants across more than 21,000 unique funds receive content distributed through Street Contxt.
On the sell side, content producers from sales and trading desks as well as research departments can distribute and quantify engagement with research notes and reports, desk commentary and news updates.
On the buy side, investors including hedge funds, pension funds and institutional asset managers can take back control of their inboxes to easily manage subscriptions, discover new and relevant content, and improve cross-functional collaboration by creating a central, firm-wide platform.
"The explosion of thought leadership and analysis available from sell side and independent firms across the content spectrum and asset classes, coupled with the looming implementation of MiFID II, has presented the investment community with unprecedented challenges that Street Contxt's platform is uniquely suited to address," says Blair Livingston (pictured), Street Contxt CEO. "With users in almost every major financial hub around the world, we're excited to welcome Point72 and our other new partners as we continue to build out our global platform."
"Street Contxt makes it easy for buy side firms to manage their institutional knowledge, maintain total control over what they receive, accurately assess broker value add for commission allocations, and ultimately make more impactful investment decisions," says Lonsdale. "The asset management industry is currently undergoing immense change, and Street Contxt's data-driven networks increase transparency and help both brokers and asset managers focus on the analysis that is both most valuable and relevant to traders and the functioning of the markets."
