The Sunday Edition

ICYMI

Last week’s newsletter

We had some M&A in the capital markets intelligence space with BlueMatrix acquiring Street Context. BlueMatrix is a financial services research publishing and distribution platform backed by Thoma Bravo. Street Context is a platform focused on email for capital markets providing email deliverability, list management, and engagement analytics to help sell-side firms grow their business and buy-side firms gain an information edge. The company previously raised $14.5M across 4 rounds with investors including 8VC, Formation 8, and Point72 Ventures.

$227.9M raised across 16 funding announcements, with themes around energy transition and supply chain analytics with Orennia (energy transition analytics) raising a Series C, Revenue Vessel (importer database) raising a Pre-Seed, Sightline (market intelligence for climate transition) raising $5.5M in a Seed, Tive (supply chain visibility) raising $40M in a Series C, and xNova International (market intelligence for exporting) raising €1M in a Seed.

I recently joined the Waters Wavelength podcast where Wei-Shen Wong and Anthony Malakian discuss the hottest financial technology topics in the capital markets every week. We talk about my career journey in expert-based research services and data, AggKnowledge, this newsletter you’re currently reading, my thoughts on private markets data, challenges I see in the data ecosystem, AI (of course), Formula 1 fun facts, and I finally publicly share the reasons why I don't like the term "Alternative Data." You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Please check it out here.

17 people moves and promotions, including multiple good friends and former colleagues. Rachel Escott joined FIS as Head of Customer Success for Enterprise Data & AI. She was previously Senior Director, Enterprise Data & Analytics at Worldpay. David Feldman joined Guidepoint as VP, Operations, Primary Research & Automation. He was previously US Expert Leader at Egon Zehnder. Sameer Gupta joined Apollo Global Management as Chief Data and Analytics Officer. He was previously Head of Data Solutions at Point72 and the New York Mets. Kieran Kennedy was promoted to Global Head, Data Cloud Product Partners at Snowflake. Mark Risis joined Omnicom Media Group as Managing Director. He was previously VP of Strategy & Global Data Ecosystem at PepsiCo. Vladimir Zhukov joined Point72 as Head of Technology - AI, ML, Data. He was previously Head of AI/ML at Stripe.

7 interesting roles including ALT Sports Data hiring a Motorsports Program Director and the New York Mets hiring a Director, Consumer Insights.

The Week Ahead

Finally back in NYC for a full week after multiple weeks on the road. Keepin’ it low-key and focused on a bunch of AggKnowledge client onboarding and prospect meetings. No public events to share.

About Last Night (well, last two weeks)

I was very fortunate to attend the Insights Association CEO Summit in Naples, Florida. The Insights Association is the non-profit trade association that serves as the hub of the Insights community, particularly in the U.S. Through the support of more than 30,000 Corporate and Individual members and guidance of its Board of Directors, the Insights Association works to Protect, Connect, Inform and Promote the Insights industry, allowing companies to remain in the know and connected to initiatives, legislation, and the amazing professionals in our community.

The event was awesome and a great gathering of industry executive and thought leaders. It was fun to share what we’re building at AggKnowledge and meet so many current and prospective customers, partners, and industry peers in-person in warmer than NYC (albeit cold for Florida) weather. The event had presentations, panel discussions, roundtables, and lots of great networking.

One of the highlight presentations was from Peter Shafer. Peter is a market research executive with background at companies including Toluna, Harris Interactive, and Gallup. But he was on stage discussing his other role, an NFL Referee. Peter walked us through the lessons and leadership tactics from sports refereeing, and I was honestly blown away by the level of preparation, pressure, and performance evaluation that refs go through. I’ve heard many professional athletes speak at conferences, but if I’m being honest, I never really felt the connection (no disrespect to athletes). If you’re looking for an engaging speaker for a leadership offsite or conference, who can connect with the audience and has people leaving saying “wow” to their peers, I highly recommend giving Peter a call. Let me know if you’d like an intro (I’m not paid for this, nor does Peter even know I’m posting this. It was genuinely one of the best presentations I’ve ever seen).

Tuesday’s dinner was at the NGALA Wildlife Preserve. On the way there I said to someone on the bus, “I hope they have a petting zoo.” Needless to say from the picture below, my expectations were far exceeded.

Special thanks to the hosts and IA Board, including Melanie Courtright (IA), Sima Vasa (Oberon Securities), Isaac Rogers (Sago), Tim Hoskins (Quester), Diane Surette (Burke), Steve Schlesinger (Sago), and Jenn Delfino (IA), for putting on this great event and introducing me to so many amazing market research industry leaders.

On the final day of the event, following some morning panel discussions and group roundtables, I drove across Alligator Alley to Miami for the annual BattleFin Data Conference. This year was a special one for me. It was not only my 5th BattleFin Miami, but the month prior, BattleFin and Exabel joined forces. As an Advisor to Exabel and Corporate Advisory Board Member to BattleFin, I was honored to join Tim Harrington and Andreas Aglen on stage to kick off the event and discuss the merger.

For the many of you who critiqued me for not wearing my usual vest, I will have you informed that the blazer has a built-in, removable vest and hood. I’d tell you where I got it, but as they say, if you have to ask… (JT used AI image search to find it online, so I’ll expect us to be matching next year).

Why is BattleFin the best party? Because Tim brings his personal DJ and singer/guitarist with him everywhere. Here we are setting up for the party at Tim’s suite. Bad Bunny was our neighbor but didn’t want to come spin. At least he wasn’t the one who put in the noise complaints (I believe there were 17 total).

The final day had some great morning panel discussions and presentations. Shout-out to Aarti Desai at NewtonX for a killer presentation on B2B survey data and the NewtonX Prime offering.

And since this one made me chuckle, check out the Rich-est panel at the conference. Sorry Stas, but next year I’m nominating that Rich Newman, Richard Hoffman, or Rich Carbone take your seat.

I concluded the event with a panel discussion on buyside data strategy and sourcing with Danielle Castelli at Baupost and Greg Kurzman at Balyasny. We talked about AI, data provider practices, and how data providers can enable healthier, more productive relationships with data buyers.

And as is customary for this newsletter, please see below a data meme shared by one of my fellow panel participants.