Artificial Impracticality

1 acquisition, 5 fundraising rounds, 15 people moves & promotions, 4 articles, 3 podcasts, 12 roles, 7 new events, and a Chart of the Week. If you’d like a downloadable copy of the latest market map, drop a comment on the LinkedIn post here.

^r/dataengineering by de4all. Thanks Eli for sharing!

M&A

• MarketAxess acquired Pragma (algorithmic trading).

*transactions have been announced but may not be closed

Fundraising

• Inrix (mobility analytics) raised $70M in a round led by Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

• Micro Connect (financial exchange) raised $458M in a Series C.

• One Model (people analytics) raised $41M in a growth round led by Riverwood Capital.

• Simon Data (customer data platform) raised $54M in a Series D led by Macquarie Capital.

• Weights & Biases (MLOps) raised $50M at a $1.25B valuation in a round led by Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman.

People Moves, Promotions, and Appointments

• Eric Brown joined Cohesity as CFO.

• Meaghan Dugan was appointed to the Board of Directors of Options Clearing Corporation (OCC).

• Brendan Gay was promoted to Director of Data Partnerships at Exabel.

• Victoria Haynes joined Insights Driven Research (IDR) as Senior Manager, Client Services.

• Daniel Khomenko joined Insights Driven Research (IDR) as Head of Operations.

• Chris Kleparek joined Polygon.io as Head of Data Acquisition.

• Nicole Königstein joined Wyden Capital as Chief Data Scientist, Head of AI & Quant Research.

• Steven Kordik joined Brevan Howard as Head of Systematic Global Operations.

• James Maxfield was promoted to Chief Product Officer at Duco.

• Katherine Mitchell joined CreditSights as Marketing Director.

• Blair Pelling joined S&P Global as Sales Director, Datafeed Solutions.

• Brent Reichert joined The Trade Desk as Director, Retail Data Partnerships.

• Spencer Wallace joined Vested Futures as Director, Fintech Solutions.

• Camilla Shuyu Yang was promoted to Director of Operations at Exabel.

• Chris Zhao joined Amateras AEA Capital as Vice President.

What I’m reading

• Handbook of Alternative Data in Finance, Volume I edited by Gautam Mitra, Christina Erlwein-Sayer, Kieu Thi Hoang, Diana Roman, and Zryan Sadik.

• How bonds ate the entire financial system by Robin Wigglesworth in the Financial Times.

• The Unicorn Fire Sales Ahead by Kate Clark in The Information.

• The Network Expert’s latest Substack post on all things expert networks.

What I’m Listening To

• Gary Cohn on Conquering Obstacles, Convening People and Creating Economic Opportunity, a discussion with Amanda Hindlian on the Ice House podcast.

• Data Visionary Bob Muglia on Data, AI, and New Book — ‘The Datapreneurs’, a discussion with Soma Somasegar on the Founded & Funded podcast.

• 20VC: The Memo: The State of the VC Market with Jason Lemkin, a discussion with Harry Stebbings on the 20VC Podcast. Also check out this recap on LinkedIn.

Who’s Hiring

• Alpha Theory is hiring a Chief of Staff / Business Analyst.

• CarGurus is hiring a VP of Data.

• Databricks is hiring a Head of Product Data Science.

• Datos is hiring a Senior Marketing Specialist.

• Fidelity is hiring a Director, Data Strategy, Private Assets & Alternatives.

• Goldman Sachs is hiring a Information Services Associate.

• Greylock is hiring a Researcher in Residence.

• Kargo is hiring a Director of Analytics.

• Starbucks is hiring a Program Manager, Data Strategy.

• Third Bridge is hiring a Vice President, Sales.

• Tinder is hiring a Senior Director of Product, Data.

• Zenith is hiring a EVP, Data & Analytics.

Chart of the Week

Upcoming Events

*new events added since last newsletter

• Disney Data & Analytics Conference, August 14-16, Orlando

• Denver Data Dudes & Dudettes - Low-Key Meetup, August 15, Denver

• *AI Builders Happy Hour, August 15, San Francisco.

• Low-Key Data Happy Hour, August 16, NYC

• *LEIT Data Meet Up, August 16, London

• DataEngBytes, Multiple August Dates, Australia

• New York Venture Summit, September 6-7, NYC

• FISD London at Google, September 19, London

• *FinJS, September 20, Toronto

• Big Data LDN, September 20-21, London

• *Data Careers Summit, September 22, Virtual

• *Cornell Financial Engineering Manhattan's 2023 Future Of Finance Conference, September 22, NYC

• *The Executive Briefing by Pitchly - Data Enablement to Empower Your Organization for Growth & Success, September 26, NYC

• BattleFin Discovery Day London, September 26-27, London

• Neudata San Francisco Data Summit, September 28, San Francisco

• FISD New York at Societe Generale, September 28, NYC

• *Snowflake Data Cloud World Tour, October 2, NYC

• FinTech Sanbox's Boston FinTech Week, October 10-13, Boston

• BattleFin Corporate Discovery Day, November 2, NYC.

• Benzinga Fintech Deal Day & Awards, November 13, NYC

Views here are my own and not of my current or former employers.