Toronto-based Street Contxt announced that it has launched its buy side platform.
Street Contxt said the new buy side platform will allow investors — including hedge funds, pension funds, and institutional asset managers — to collaborate internally on investment ideas, monitor their positions, and discover new content and research all through a single portal.
Before launching the buy side service, Street Contxt’s platform only served sell side brokerages, independent research firms, and institutional investors, enabling them to distribute and manage all forms of content and analysis including formal research, macro commentary, and content distributed from the sales and trading desk.
“As data has become commoditized on Wall Street, investor demand has increased for content, context, and control.”
– Blair Livingston
The company said adding buy side functionality completes its offerings as it brings together brokerages, independent research providers, and funds into a centralized platform. Through the buy side service, investors can save, annotate, and share content; collaborate on investment ideas; and set individual preferences to receive only information that is relevant. They can also manage internally-generated research, web content, and any other source of information they want to distribute across their firm’s team.
“As data has become commoditized on Wall Street, investor demand has increased for content, context, and control,” said Blair Livingston, CEO of Street Contxt. “The buy side is receiving more information than ever before, and investors are struggling to eliminate the noise, find the insight that they need, and manage that content firm-wide over time. This is extremely evident as we enter into earnings season and investors’ inboxes get flooded with instant analysis and commentary on the hundreds of companies reporting each day. The Street Contxt buy side service will help investors confidently find the information that is important to them, collaborate across the fund, and build a long-term, institutional knowledge base that helps capture alpha.”
Along with enabling investors to manage and distribute content, Street Contxt said the buy side platform is also using machine learning to help users monitor and analyze content, activity, and positions held internally.
“Firms can analyze what is being read, and also what is not being read, and makes recommendations to each user based on their demonstrated interests,” wrote Street Contxt in a statement. “Through these recommendations, investors can discover brokers and independent research providers that they may not have existing relationships with and uncover new insights that would normally have gone unnoticed.”
In April, Street Contxt raised a round of financing by a strategic funding consortium led by existing investor Joe Lonsdale of 8VC, and including an investment by Point72 Ventures, the early-stage venture capital strategy of Point72 Asset Management. In January 2016, the company raised an $8 million USD ($10 million CAD) Series A.