Ravenpack is a company technology which has just sold part of its shares to the British investment bank GP Bullhound, which specialises in technology.
It has done so in a round valued at 10M$.
Today, artificial intelligence technologies and Big Data tools are starting to be incorporated to process natural language, especially in financial services.
This is reflected in the sector's corporate finance movements.
WHO IS RAVENPACK?
Ravenpack is a Spanish data analysis platformbased in Marbella and with an office in New York, which leading in natural language processing and machine learning.
It uses artificial intelligence to create sentiment indicators from news and social networks, which are connected to the trading systems of subscribing financial institutions.
Its database comprises more than 19,000 sources and enables these institutions to improve their performance and risk management.
The company competes in some segments with Bloomberg and Refinitiv, and has clients such as Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank.
In addition, its technology is used by leading hedge funds and fund managers globally.
As a result, in October 2019, Ravenpack sold part of its shares in a round valued at 10M$.
The new investor is GP Bullhound, a London-based technology investment bank, which has already made other investments in Spain, namely in OnTruck, Stratio, Playtomic and Auro.
The investment has been made through Fund IVa €113m tech fund that recently invested in Glovo, Klarna, TRadeshift and LendInvest.
SECOND INSTITUTIONAL FUNDING
This is the second time that Ravenpack sells part of its shares and is institutionally financed for this.
Already in 2017, it did so to the value of 5M$ to London-based Venture Capital firm Draper Esprit PLC.
Then they had 40 employees. Now there are 120, with plans to hire another 50 people over the next 2020.
ENTRY INTO THE ASIAN MARKET
Ravenpack's objectives with this operation are twofold:
- Access to other sectors beyond financial services
- Expansion in Asia
It is worth noting the strong growth in demand for the use of its data analysis services.
In 2018, 80% of sales were made between Europe and the U.S. Now, following success on both continents, the potential of the business now lies in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo, cities with large investment banks.
However, it is worth mentioning that the firm has also been working for several years with Macquarie Bank in Australia, one of the strongest banks in that country.
OTHER RELEVANT OPERATIONS IN THE SECTOR
SHERPA
Sherpa is a company based in Bilbao and Silicon Valley, responsible for creating Digital Assistant Technology based on artificial intelligence algorithms with strong conversational and predictive skills..
Its technology is designed for manufacturers of consumer products such as automobiles and electronic accessories looking to add intelligence, as well as explore new business models based on digital service offerings.
Recently, it has been able to lift 8.5M$ in its latest Series A financing round.
UNBABEL
Unbabel is a firm that enables companies to serve customers in their native languages, with scalable, always-on translation through digital channels..
Its clients include leading brands such as Facebook, Microsoft and EasyJet.
Last September, it managed to capture 60M$ in a round of funding C series.