When it comes to the data used by Credit Suisse’s $650 million quant fund QT, Roberto Jedreicich is the decider.
Business Insider followed Jedreicich for a day. With so many alternative data providers popping up, what’s it like to buy data for a large fund? How many pitches do you get in a day?
Bradley Saacks filed this report on Jedreicich’s hectic schedule for Business Insider:
So, with limited time, he listened to these companies’ abbreviated histories — how many graduate degrees their founders have, which obscure countries they have real-time data on — and started with one simple question: How does this help me and my fund?
“I can tell pretty much right away which ones I’m interested in, and they’ll know right away if I’m interested,” he said in between meetings. Business Insider trailed Jedreicich over the course of a few days at BattleFin, a conference designed to match up companies that provide alternative data with buyers of that data.
Whether it’s satellite images, credit-card transactions, or information scraped off the web, the collection of obscure data known as alternative data, which is used for investment purposes, is a growing business. A Deloitte report pegged the alternative-data market to surpass the $7 billion mark by 2020.
Data buyers like Jedreicich control the purse strings for the billions of dollars hedge funds plan to spend on this type of information. Data buying wasn’t always the sexiest of roles, but as hedge funds seek out new ways to beat the market, they’re increasingly looking to alternative-data providers that offer insight into companies not found in filings and earnings calls.
A sampling of the companies at BattleFin that were trying to pitch data buyers included: Zillow, the real-estate database with millions of listings; the Amsterdam-based CGLytics, which consolidates and analyzes corporate governance practices for managers with a social-impact focus; and PatSnap, a company focused on data found in new patents and research from the tech world.
