TickSmith, a startup with a data selling platform, has reeled in $20 million CAD in Series A funding, bringing its total capital to $26.8 million.
Launched in 2012 by co-founders Francis Wenzel (CEO), David Côté (COO), Marc-André Hétu (CPO), and Tony Bussieres (CTO), TickSmith offers an e-commerce data shopping experience for businesses. It provides the tools necessary to prepare, manage, package and monetize data. Its applications allow capital markets and financial institutions to “interpret value and gain insights” from financial data.
“Selling data should be as simple as selling products in an e-commerce store.”
— Francis Wenzel
Investissement Québec led the December round with participation from Fonds de solidarité FTQ, CME Ventures, Databricks Ventures, with additional funding from existing investors Anges Québec, Anges Québec Capital, and Illuminate Financial Management.
Headquartered in Montréal with offices in New York and London, the new funds will go toward expanding TickSmith’s sales and marketing teams, as well as toward commercializing the startup’s data web store across new industry segments.
“Data monetization is no longer limited to large enterprises,” said Francis Wenzel, CEO of TickSmith. “Selling data should be as simple as selling products in an e-commerce store, and data sellers of all sizes can now benefit from the same tools that power the largest, most robust data marketplaces in the world.”
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TickSmith’s $20 million financing is sizable compared to its past funding rounds. Previously, the startup raised $2 million in 2020 from Business Development Bank of Canada’s (BDC) Growth and transition and capital division. In 2017, the company secured $2 million from Illuminate Financial Management LLP to support the further commercialization of its flagship product, TickVault.
According to Crunchbase data, TickSmith also raised over $230,000 for its pre-seed round, and $1.3 million in seed funding from Anges Québec and AQC Capital in 2014.
Outside of raising capital, multiple global firms have committed to using TickSmith’s data web store. IPOhub, an Estonian-based company, recently announced its deal with TickSmith in January. TickSmith’s data web store platform will enable IPOhub to securely commercialize IPO and European market SME data from over three thousand companies and more than a hundred different sources.
Global cryptocurrency and digital asset company BlockFills entered a partnership with TickSmith in December last year. This would enable BlockFills to deploy TickSmith’s platform and commercialize the company’s digital asset and crypto currency market data. The integrated platform would allow institutional investors to purchase cryptocurrency market data in addition to executing market orders.