Oslo-based AI and analytics provider Exabel recently announced the release of a new feature which provides direct integration with Snowflake enabling clients and partners to easily bring new datasets into the Exabel platform.
New “Import Jobs” Feature
Exabel’s newest feature called “Import Jobs” enables customers and data partners to easily connect to datasets residing in a Snowflake data warehouse, allowing them to run queries to extract data, and import that data into the Exabel platform in minutes. Investment teams will be able to more rapidly evaluate and integrate new data sets, and alternative data providers will be able to swiftly ingest their data into the Exabel platform as part of their ongoing Insights partnership program.
Over the past month, Exabel has successfully used a beta version of Import Jobs to onboard data provided by partners through the Insights Platform program. This functionality will now be opened up externally for Beta clients to refine and test this feature in the coming weeks. Future plans include further extending Import Jobs with additional data integrations, so that customers will be able to easily combine alternative data sets no matter where the data resides.
Founded in 2016, Exabel uses artificial intelligence to onboard alternative datasets so they can be evaluated and analyzed against relevant market KPIs. Exabel is currently growing rapidly having increased the team 50% over the past 12 months to 40 staff. In addition, the firm has raised $22.7mln in 5 financing rounds (plus the receipt of one grant).
Exabel CEO, Neil Chapman commented on the launch of this new feature, saying “Import Jobs is a great step forward for Exabel and its clients and partners, and demonstrates how barriers to the free flow of data are being eroded by technological innovation and market maturation. Data is the most valuable commodity in the 21st century, but like anything of value it brings its own inherent challenges; in this case, the problems of transferring and ingesting large and complicated datasets. With Import Jobs, a vast amount of inefficiency is removed, allowing Exabel’s clients and partners to spend more time focusing on solving the problems that will directly unleash value. Practitioners with data on Snowflake will now be able to get their data into Exabel within minutes, without having to write any code.”
Our Take
One of the greatest barriers to entry for alternative data providers is the inability of most asset managers to evaluate new alternative data sources and determine the predictive power of this data for their investment processes. Platforms like Exabel and tools like “Import Jobs” helps make this process much easier and quicker, particularly for fundamentally focused investors who are looking to add quantitative data to their investment process.
Consequently, we suspect that a growing number of alternative data vendors will look to partner with firms like Exabel, or competitors like ExtractAlpha, Neuravest, AltHub / Invisage, or CloudQuant in the future to help them more effectively prove the predictive capabilities of their data offerings – a critical step for alternative data firms to be adopted by the asset management community.