The Alternative Data Podcast

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 came to be quite so hot right now, and frontiers for the sector notably in the Chinese market. 

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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 suggestion is that the markets might be faced with a new type of player, a co-ordinated mass of small investors not necessarily motivated only by profit.

In this emergency episode I speak to Sylvain Forté of SESAMm, an alternative data company that has been automatically monitoring forums like Reddit for many years, and which might provide assistance to traditional investors in understanding and coping with this new market influence. 

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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 to which Sequentum’s offering can be lent. 

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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 as possible to hedge funds like Synthesis.

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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 would win the vaccine race, to understanding the global trends around ESG, remote working and falling wages. 

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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 New York, using external data to help corporates capture maximum revenues, how to choose the right alternative dataset, and the ongoing poker game that is the financial markets.  

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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 Processing.

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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 given moment around the world.

The potential uses of SAR are almost unlimited, from measuring the number of cars currently under construction to the changing height of Mount Everest to detecting troop movements at sensitive borders.

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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 how the platform could be a saviour for those companies trying to achieve the hard task of combining datasets. 

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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 started off, and what Jordan and Mark have been seeing in the wider Alternative Data Space, both in terms of the hottest datasets and the emerging trends on the buyside. 

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