The Alternative Data Podcast

In this episode I speak to Kelly Koscuiszka of the law firm Schulte, Roth & Zabel. Kelly is a specialist in all the legal matters surrounding the alternative data sector, and in our conversation we embarked on a tour of the regulatory horizon. During our journey we touched on insider trading laws, the hiQ-LinkedIn web-scraping case, privacy issues, and the best ways that alternative data buyer...

In this episode I’m joined by Elizabeth Pritchard, who is topping all the alternative data ‘people moves’ lists following her announcement as the new CEO at Bitvore. Elizabeth is well-established in alternative data. Having first entered this world as Global Head of Market Data at Goldman Sachs, she went on to co-found Crux Informatics and then White Rock Data. In our conversation we talked about...

In this episode I speak to Gene Ekster of Alt DG. Gene has been in alternative data pretty much since the beginning, and he even has a claim to having named the sector for a Wall Street Journal article. In our conversation, Gene and I discuss the past, present and future of alternative data, as well as his data cleaning company Alt DG and his experience teaching alternative data at NYU. Hosted on...

In this episode I speak to Spenser Marshall of M Science. M Science is one of the more established players in the alternative data world, having been first founded as Majestic Research back in 2002. In our conversation, Spenser and I explore the company’s historical development, current offering, client-base, and we touch on some use cases of M Science’s data. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privac...

In this episode I speak to Alexander Denev, co-author of The Book of Alternative Data and until recently a lecturer in the subject at Oxford University. Alexander’s alternative data experience is vast, and in our conversation we cover a range of topics and use cases: from how to differentiate causality from correlation, to the use of alternative data to make predictions about the oil price, to the...

In this episode I speak to Thani Shamsi of Datarade, a data marketplace based out of Berlin. In our conversation, Thani and I talk about the efficiencies needed to unleash alternative data even more, advantages and challenges of being based in Europe, and the GDPR and Europe’s regulatory approach. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I speak to Hendrik Bartel, founder of TruValue Labs - an ESG data provider which has recently been acquired by Factset. In our conversation, Hendrik and I discuss the evolution and future of the ESG space, with reference to the area’s history, coverage and clientele. If you find this conversation interesting and are left with follow-up questions, please join Hendrik and I for an As...

In this emergency two-part episode around the ongoing Suez Canal event I speak to two alternative data providers that are perfectly positioned to provide insight to investors. First up, I speak to Stellios Stratidakis of MarineTraffic, a company that maps the data provided via the transponders aboard all the ships afloat at any given time. Along with the historical data and additional intelligence...

In this episode I’m joined by Doug McElhaney and Mohammed Aaser of McKinsey. Doug and Mohammed recently co-authored a paper about external data - a word for alternative data used by corporates.   In our conversation Doug, Mohammed and I discuss the differences between external and alternative data, how McKinsey’s clients extract value from external data and challenges in risk management aroun...

In this episode I speak to John Farrall of 90 West Data. After a successful career in sell-side research John and a colleague gained access to a differentiated US consumer transactions dataset, and 90 West data is the resulting company. In our conversation John and I spoke about challenges involved in selling alternative data, the tailwinds behind growth in the alternative data ecosystem, the expa...

In this episode I speak to JP Gravitt, who until January was Director of Research at 7Park Data, an alternative data company which has now ceased to exist. In our conversation, JP and I spoke about the challenges of selling alternative data, the education process needed when dealing with different clients ranging from hedge funds into the corporate world, what happened at 7Park Data, the possible...

In this episode I speak to Philip Brittan of Crux Informatics. Rather than being an alternative data buyer or provider, Crux is a utility designed to serve the wider data market. Billing itself as ‘the DHL of data’, Crux provides a pipeline which streamlines the complicated and unwieldy process of transporting data from the provider to the consumer. Philip’s own background in the upper echelons of...

In this episode I speak to Peter Hafez of RavenPack.   Dating back to the early ‘00s, RavenPack is one of the pioneers of alternative data, since it was using natural language processing (NLP) techniques to extract meaning from textual data long before it became fashionable. Peter’s position of Chief Data Scientist allowed us to get a little more technical in our discussion of RavenPack’s off...

In this episode I speak to Garrett Long of LeapYear, a California-based company that has a claim to having solved the data privacy problem. LeapYear’s software is able to give peace of mind to owners of large datasets by ensuring they cannot be reverse engineered to reveal, for example, the personal data of individuals.   This means companies are able to release the full value in their data b...

In this episode I speak to Philip Beck of Moojing, a China-based e-commerce data provider. As an established player with 6 years in the Chinese market, Moojing is in a strong position to take advantage of the growing alternative data interest in China. We talk about advertising to Chinese consumers, the e-commerce scene in China, and what market trends Philip has been seeing. Hosted on Acast. See...

In this episode I speak to Philipp Aeby of RepRisk. Switzerland-based RepRisk is one of the founding fathers of the trending ESG sector, since it has been compiling environmental and social data since the mid-2000s, and kept up to date with the latest machine learning techniques used for generating it. In our conversation, Philipp and I discuss his unusual background as a debut novelist, how ESG c...

This week, international news was full of a story in which a group of independent investors collaborated via the web-based chat forum Reddit to go up against Wall Street hedge funds and win, specifically by buying options and shares in GameStop, a stock that the hedge funds had sold short. Though the event was swiftly politicized into a David and Goliath story, perhaps the more interesting suggest...

In this episode I speak to Sarah McKenna of Sequentum. Sarah’s long experience at the cutting edge of process automation has been perfect preparation for her work at Sequentum, a company which hedge funds and other enterprises use to web-scrape and prepare their data. In our conversation, Sarah and I talk about Intelligent Process Automation’s move towards Hyper Automation, and the varied purposes...

In this episode I speak to Olga Kane of Synthesis, a quantitative hedge fund that uses alternative data within its investment strategies. As a sourcer and buyer of alternative data, Olga has a long history in the sector and she provides a powerful overview into what works and what doesn’t, including some very useful advice for alternative data providers on how to make their product as attractive a...

In this episode I speak to Benjamin Zweig of Revelio Labs, a company that has created the world’s first ‘universal HR database’. In our conversation Ben and I talk about how working in IBM’s HR Analytics department prepared him for the launch of Revelio, and about the multitudinous potential uses of his product – from tracking the movement of top talent, to correctly identifying which company woul...

In this much longer episode than normal, I speak to Matei Zatreanu of System2. As a provider of alternative data analysis advice to hedge funds and corporate clients, Matei sits in the privileged position of being able to explore and seek value in a vast array of alternative datasets. In our conversation we talk about surviving Lehman Brothers, monthly beers with the early Alt Data community in Ne...

In this episode I speak to Sylvain Forté of SESAMm, a Paris-based company that uses Natural Language Processing techniques to track changes in market sentiment and rapid developments as they occur. In our conversation we talk about Paris’s AI and Alternative Data scene, new developments in SESAMm’s use cases around ESG and Private Equity, and technological advancements in Natural Language Processi...

In this episode I speak to Daniela Moody and Daniel Baruch of URSA Space. URSA Space is a satellite imaging company which is constantly sweeping the planet with a technology known as SAR. Akin to radar, SAR can see through clouds and is accurate enough to measure the heights of floating lids on giant oil containers, making it an invaluable tool for understanding the amount of oil in storage at a g...

In this episode I speak to Neil Chapman of Exabel. Exabel is a company that delivers a platform for investment teams to get actionable insights from alternative data, without having to onboard a whole data science or quant team into the firm, with all the complications and costs that would imply. In our conversation we talk about how Neil arrived at Exabel after a career of building companies, and...

In this episode I’m joined by Jordan Hauer and Mark Donovick of Amass Insights. Amass Insights is one of alternative data’s facilitators. The company provides a bridge for alternative data buyers to get access to the whole gamut of available datasets; at the last count Jordan and Mark had 13,000 alternative data providers on their books. In our conversation we speak about how Amass Insights starte...