It's Race Week
Could also name this "AI funding week"
Since last post we’ve seen 3 acquisitions, 1 company going public, 15 fundraising rounds, 10 people moves & promotions, 13 roles, 2 new firm launches, 9 articles, 1 national anthem (probably), and 7 newly added events. A lot of Formula 1 in this week’s newsletter as well - it is race week after all.
M&A
Go Public
Webull (digital brokerage) announced a deal to go public through a merger with SK Growth Opportunities (SPAC). In the proposed deal, the combined company will be listed on the Nasdaq at a pro forma enterprise value of approximately $7.3B.
Data in Formula 1
Drive To Survive Season 6 dropped last Friday on Netflix. If you are like me, you finished the series by Monday morning. There were a bunch of solid data references and quotes I want to share in the event you aren’t already convinced to watch…
“Our sport is a data-driven sport, but data don’t make decisions, it’s people that do.” - Toto Wolff, Team Principal of Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team
“Data for me is the foundation of Formula 1. There’s no human judgement involved, you’ve got to get your foundations right in data. When you get that right, that’s how you move forward.” - James Vowles, Team Principal of Williams Racing.
“In this sport you need to get the balance right between data and then your instinct as a leader.” - Toto Wolff, Team Principal of Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team
“In Formula 1 times change very very quickly. So today’s team principal is having to deal with big data, big tech.” - Claire Williams, Former Team Principal of Williams Racing.
“Data drives what you're trying to do. So you're just running a million simulations trying to predict whats gonna happen.” - James Vowles, Team Principal of Williams Racing.
“I ate a lot of chipotle yesterday.” - Guenther Steiner, Former Team Principal of Haas Formula One.
Fundraising
Apica (data management and observability) raised a round led by Riverside Acceleration Capital.
b.well (FHIR-enabled healthcare data interoperability) raised $40M in a Series A led by Leavitt Equity Partners.
Codified (data governance) raised $4M in a Seed round led by Madrona and Vine Ventures.
Crisp (CPG and retail data) raised $50M in a Series B extension
Finpilot (investment research AI copilot) raised $4M in a Seed round led by Madrona.
Glean (AI assistant) raised $200M in a Series D at a $2.2B valuation led by Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
HuLoop (intelligent automation) raised $5M in a Seed round led by Moneta Ventures.
Mistral AI (GenAI models) raised €15M from Microsoft.
mTab (market research and survey data platform) raised $15M in growth credit financing from Kayne Anderson Growth Capital.
Myko AI (conversational AI for sales data) raised $2.7M in a Seed round led by Khosla Ventures.
Reveleer (healthcare data & analytics) raised $65M in a round led by Hercules Capital.
Synadia (open source connective technology) raised $25M in a Series B led by Forgepoint Capital.
United Fintech (financial platform and digital transformation) received strategic investments from BNP Paribas and Citi.
Unseenlabs (maritime surveillance and intelligence) raised €85M in a round.
Xevant (PBM & healthcare analytics) received a follow-on investment from HCAP Partners and Tech Council Ventures.
People Moves, Promotions, and Appointments
George Bonne joined Jain Global as Head of Equity Portfolio Research.
Andrew Frawley joined Data Axle as CEO.
Ashley Kramer joined the Board of Directors of dbt Labs.
AungMaw Lwin joined BCA Research as Chief Transformation Officer.
Charlie Moore joined DTN as Climate and Weather Strategy & Growth Director.
Isaac Piecuch joined Placer.ai as Account Director, Finance.
Sridhar Ramaswamy was promoted to CEO at Snowflake.
Eliza Raphael joined Jump Trading Group as Head of Data Services.
Adam Rowings joined Character.AI as Head of Data.
Austin Stefani joined dbt Labs as Chief Revenue Officer.
New Firm Launches
Ascendance Asset Management is a new multi-strategy hedge fund with a focus on integrating AI into the investment process. The firm is founded by Robert Kim, former CIO at AllianceBernstein - Arya Partners. Josh Adam, Co-Founder of Accrete AI, joined as the firm’s Director of Research and Head of AI. More info can be found in this article from Bradley Saacks.
The Financial Times Group launched FT Ventures, a new corporate venture arm to invest in high-growth innovative companies operating in the global information industry.
FT Ventures seeks to back ambitious founders who want to shape the future of the world’s information industry, and aims to do so by investing in businesses operating in the areas of media, data, intelligence or their underlying technologies.
Who’s Hiring
AbbVie is hiring a Associate Director, Market Analytics and Business Intelligence, Oncology.
Calamos Investments is hiring a Analytics Engineer.
Databricks is hiring a Enterprise Account Executive, FSI and a Strategic Account Executive - Financial Services ($225K-$398K).
Datavant is hiring a Head of Life Sciences, Ecosystem, Public Sector and Enterprise Marketing ($275K-$325K).
Disney is hiring a Director, Decision Science Products ($198K-$279K).
Genesco is hiring a Director, Consumer and Market Insights.
GoFundMe is hiring a Director, Data Science and Analytics ($200K-$275K).
Macy’s is hiring a SVP, Enterprise Data & Analytics Technology ($311K-$577K).
Precisely is hiring a Senior Director Product Management - Spatial Analytics.
Snowflake is hiring a Product Marketing - Competitive Intelligence Lead ($166K-$237K).
Stocktwits is hiring a Director, Sales & Partnerships.
Verisk is hiring a Team Lead - Geospatial Risk Analytics.
*salaries only listed where provided by the company. See links for specific salary details.
What I’m Reading
External Data and AI Are Making Each Other More Valuable by Adam Nahari and Dimitris Bertsimas.
F1 Technology & Data Analysis: How Data is Transforming Race Performance by Catapult
Pod Shops Unveiled - Navigating the Evolution and Impact of Multi-Strategy Hedge Funds by Stuart Fotheringham.
AI's Unlikely Benefactor: Blackstone's 77-Year-Old CEO Steve Schwarzman by Miriam Gottfried.
The Hedge Funds That Changed the Game by Caitlin McCabe and Peter Rudegeair.
Data Harbour, a new newsletter from Todd Harbour.
What Happens to Your Sensitive Data When a Data Broker Goes Bankrupt? by Jon Keegan.
FACT SHEET: President Biden Issues Executive Order to Protect Americans’ Sensitive Personal Data.
What I’m Listening To
Probably the Dutch National Anthem on Saturday at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Upcoming Events
*new events added since last newsletter
*Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2024, March 2, Bahrain
Fintech Meetup, March 3-6, Las Vegas
*VC & PE Happy Hour, March 5, NYC
Databricks Financial Services Forum, March 6, NYC
*Low Key Data Happy Hour, March 6, NYC
*Data Mishaps Night, March 7, Virtual
*Data Driven NYC with Dataiku, Runway & Foursquare, March 11, NYC
Gartner Data & Analytics Summit, March 11–13, Orlando
*Quant Strats, March 12, NYC
BWG Strategy and OTR Global - Future of AI Conference, March 14, NYC
BattleFin Discovery Day, March 20-21, Singapore
FISD, March 21, Boston
Skiers in Data (SKID) by LEIT Data, March 24, Verbier Switzerland
Enterprise Data World, March 24-29, Orlando
Data Council No Bullsh*t Data Conference, March 26-28, Austin
New York FinTech Week, April 8-12, NYC
FinTech Sandbox Demo Days, April 9 and 11, Virtual
Data Universe, April 10-11, NYC
VC Platform Global Summit, April 15-17, Miami
Insight Innovation Exchange (IIEX), April 17-18, Austin
World of DaaS Summit, April 18, Washington D.C.
TDWI Modern Data Leader's Summit, April 29-May 1, Chicago
Knowledge Graph Conference, May 6-10, NYC
*Data Summit, May 8-9, Boston
DataIQ 100 Summit, May 20-21, Miami
Asia Financial Information Conference (AsiaFIC), May 28-29, Singapore
SuperReturn International, June 4-7, Berlin
The Quirk’s Event, July 17-18, NYC
Just For Fun
Views here are the author’s own and not of any employers or companies. The author may be compensated for pieces in this newsletter.