TechCrunch reports that AI-powered “investment research software” Sentieo has raised $19m to pour some marketing fuel on its SaaS fire.
The company uses natural language processing to parse through financial documents and visualize data from multiple sources like Alexa (web traffic) and Apptopia (app downloads).
The goal? Fill the gaps financial tools like Bloomberg Terminals have left open for 20+ years.
In 2016, Bloomberg Terminal sales dropped for the second time in the company’s history — despite global spending on financial info reaching an all-time high.
Meanwhile, they’re still charging $21k a year for their subscriptions, compared to about $12k for Sentieo (which according to TC also has a “traditional financial equity data terminal” on top of its other capabilities).
The most interesting thing about Sentieo is its ability to search nontraditional data sources like earnings call transcripts and SEC documents for “mentions” of specific phrases (like “Model 3 production volume,” etc.), with enough flexibility for varied phrasing and synonyms to make it useful.
But, Sentieo is still the new kid on Wall Street — and it’s got a pretty massive target on its back if it wants to unseat the King Terminal.