New York—Reflecting growing interest in search-based research, two firms in the segment recently announced changes. Monitor110 hired a former NYFIX executive as CEO, and FirstRain announced new analytics capabilities focused on management transparency and turnover. Both firms are search-based research firms specializing in providing investors capabilities to mine the deep web for investment insights.
New CEO for Monitor 110
Monitor110, a New York based financial intelligence firm, announced the appointment of Brennan Carley as Chief Executive Officer. Carley, 46, was most recently an executive at NYFIX, an electronic trading solutions company. Prior to that, he worked for the private equity unit of Warburg Pincus, Reuters and Instinet. Carley was co-founder of Radianz, a financial markets network provider.
Co-incident with the appointment of Brennan as CEO, founder Jeff Stewart relinquished the Chairman role to Roger Ehrenberg, who was previously President. Monitor 110 is backed by VC firms Acadia Woods Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and DFJ Gotham, and the move signals a desire to accelerate the firm’s sales to the buy-side. The full press release can be viewed at: http://www.monitor110.com/about/news_jan152008_BrennanCarleyCEO_PR.php
FirstRain Product Launch
FirstRain, a search-driven research firm based in Foster City California, announced the introduction of a new analytic product suite, FirstRain Management Monitor, which focuses on management transparency and turnover. The new product is intended to distill dispersed information into concise data points of interest to the buy side. [Note: Integrity’s CEO, Sanford Bragg, is a member of FirstRain’s advisory board.]
The FirstRain Management Monitor consists of three reports designed to synthesize public comments by company management and turnover in management staff. For example, the FirstRain Management Turnover Report compiles announced and unannounced changes to management, such as hires, departures and internal moves, for 85% of global equities traded by U.S. managers, according to the company’s press release.
The announcement reflects a growing interest in mining investment oriented content from the web. Firms such as Connotate, Kapow and ClearForest have tools designed to create quantitative time series from web content, and FirstRains applications focus on mining more qualitative web sources. The full press release can be found at: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/01-28-2008/0004743777&EDATE=