Some of the biggest names on Wall Street, including John Mack and Vikram Pandit, have joined a $130 million funding round for Dataminr, a startup that trawls through tweets and other data sources to create alerts for clients such as banks.
The round, which reportedly values Dataminr at about $700 million, was led by Fidelity Management and Research Company, and joined by Wellington Management, Credit Suisse Next Investors and Goldman Sachs. High-profile individuals such as Mack, Pandit and former Reuters CEO Tom Glocer also participated.
Founded in 2009, Dataminr uses proprietary algorithms to instantly analyise all public tweets and other publicly available data to provide its clients with early warnings for breaking news, real-world events, off the radar content, and emerging trends.
The New York-based outfit claims to have pioneered "groundbreaking technology" that identifies, classifies, and determines the significance of real-time information and delivers relevant signals and contextual analytics through high-value applications and customisable APIs. As well as being used by traders, the technology is being tapped in the public sector, news, security, and crisis management.
Ted Bailey, CEO, Dataminr, says: "This capital will enable our company to meet the tremendous global demand for our products, expand into a number of new markets, and integrate valuable new datasets into our algorithmic engine to enhance our Twitter-based signals and broaden our offerings."