Market Intelligence: A Growing Industry
Market intelligence—where organizations collect and analyze data about industries, competitors, and trends to inform their business strategies—has rapidly evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry. This year, it is projected to generate nearly $84 billion in revenue. As innovative technologies like ChatGPT pose potential disruptions in this space, leading startup AlphaSense is seizing the opportunity with a substantial $150 million funding round to propel its growth.
The Series E funding, spearheaded by Bond, elevates AlphaSense's valuation to $2.5 billion. This round also sees participation from CapitalG (Alphabet's investment arm focused on larger ventures), Viking Global Investors, Goldman Sachs, and new investor BAM Elevate.
Notably, AlphaSense boasts over 4,000 enterprise customers, including giants such as Google, Microsoft, J.P. Morgan, and many of the S&P 500 companies, representing a diverse array of sectors. The impressive customer portfolio and funding numbers come at a time when many startups face challenges securing investments and achieving robust valuations.
AlphaSense's funding round showcases its resilience amid market fluctuations. Previously, within the past 15 months, the company successfully raised $325 million during its Series D funding, which included a $225 million round led by Goldman Sachs and Viking Global, followed by a $100 million extension led by CapitalG. The valuation at that time stood at $1.8 billion.
Initially, AlphaSense aimed to announce this funding round in June but postponed for three months, during which some details leaked. The company has not disclosed its reasons for the delay.
Various methods exist for organizations to gather market intelligence today. These include in-house research teams, enterprise search platforms, business intelligence tools like LexisNexis and Elastic, and external consultancy services.
AlphaSense differentiates itself by offering a platform that serves as both a data crawler and an insights extractor. Currently, it aggregates data from around 10,000 sources, encompassing both private and public content from major research firms, government entities, and competitor companies. A key emphasis lies in financial insights, bolstered by acquisitions such as Stream, which catalogs expert interviews, and Sentieo, a financial intelligence platform designed for investment professionals.
Its service-driven approach—termed “insights-as-a-service”—allows users to extract information about specific companies while leveraging AlphaSense’s machine learning and natural language processing technologies to transform this data into accessible narratives and compelling visuals.
Jack Kokko, AlphaSense's founder and CEO, described their unique approach: “We concentrate on unstructured information and provide structure to it.” He highlights that web search intelligence continuously improves through machine learning; however, AlphaSense must navigate information without the benefit of massive web search data from private sources.
This capability is poised to give AlphaSense a competitive edge, particularly as it faces challenges from generative AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has recently gained popularity for market research tasks. When discussing ChatGPT's impact, Kokko emphasized that while it generates “somewhat random results” lacking business acumen, AlphaSense is training its own large language models to enhance performance.
Kokko recognizes that while this development is valuable, it represents just one aspect of AlphaSense's evolving utility. “We need to stay ahead in multiple dimensions,” he noted, reflecting a commitment to adaptability.
AlphaSense may well be leveraging its own technology to navigate future challenges. If it succeeds—as its investors and clients anticipate—it will remain ahead of its competition. Jay Simons, General Partner at Bond, praised AlphaSense in a statement: “We seek out iconic technology companies that are shaping the future. AlphaSense quickly stood out as a category creator set to redefine how businesses operate and make strategic decisions.”
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