DMI Euro Award Winner WeeFin Raises €25m in Funding Round for ESG Platform

ESG data management startup WeeFin has raised €25 million in a Series B funding round to help develop its SaaS platform for the financial services sector.

The Paris-based startup, which won last year’s Data Management Insight Euro Award for Best Data Management Initiative for ESG, said the capital injection was led by BlackFin Capital Partners, a European fintech fund, as well as existing investors IRIS, Asterion Ventures and Ring Capita.

WeeFin said the additional funds would also help it drive international expansion, including in the UK through its London office.

Formed in 2021, the company provides ESG data optimisation services to 40 customers that oversee a total of €6.9 trillion.

Duco Updates Financial Firms’ Reconciliation Maturity Model

Financial data automation specialist Duco has updated its Reconciliation Maturity Model, which guides institutions through the process of streamlining their reconciliation functions.

The model helps firms establish their level of maturity in moving from manual to automated operations and then shows them how they can get to the next level. Duco said that an organisation with 1,000 controls can potentially save as much as US$38 million annually by following its best-practice guide.

Even institutions at the most advanced stage of maturity can obtain benefits to the tune of $6,000 savings in audit costs by following the guide, Duco said.

Apex to Accelerate Ascend on Google Cloud

Apex Group, a global financial services provider, has signed a deal with Google Cloud to fast-track the development of its Ascend trading, clearing and custody tool.

The New York-based company said it would use Google Cloud’s tools to build an integrated artificial intelligence stack, infrastructure and other tools for data, security and communication.

Apex Ascend was launched last year to provide “a suite of modern capabilities that enable fintech, wealth management and institutional clients to go from idea to launch seamlessly and confidently”, the company said.

The tie-up will see Apex use Google Cloud’s AlloyDB database service, its Big Query artificial intelligence-ready data platform, the Looker intelligence platform and Looker Studio self-service tools as well as Vertex AI, an AI development platform.

Snowflake Hosts JPX’s J-Quants Pro Market Data

JPX Market Innovation & Research’s J-Quants Pro market data sets are now available on Snowflake, giving clients access to Japanese financial market data and analytics.

The new access channel for J-Quants Pro data will complement its API and SFTP connectivity provisions.

Bloomberg Unveils AI-Powered Document Search Tool

Bloomberg has added a generative artificial intelligence module to its research functions, enabling users to query company documents using conversational language.

AI-Powered Document Insights has been built out from the data Behemoth’s AI-Powered Earnings Call Summaries and works alongside its AI-Powered News Summaries. The latest model enables the search and summarisation of documents from a library of more than 200 million company documents and from the Bloomberg News trove of articles, which is updated with 5,000 new pieces of writing each day.

The models behind AI-Powered Document Insights have been trained to understand the nuanced language of finance and created with the help of analysts in the Bloomberg Intelligence research business.

S&P Global Extends ESG Data Offering with Snowflake

A new public and private entity ESG data service is available to clients of S&P Global Market Intelligence on the Snowflake platform, extending a tie-up between the two companies.

Part of S&P Global’s Enterprise Data Management (EDM) Insights Platform, the Global Entity Linking and ESG Data Management Services offering enables clients to clean and map ESG data to traded entities and then subject it to artificial intelligence-led analytics and models on Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud.

The companies said this gives a “unique” view of clients’ entities, hierarchies and linked reference data.

The new tool will “effectively manage the vast volumes associated with sustainability data while offering our clients the flexibility to quickly and seamlessly onboard and integrate new data sources”, said Vikas Sahni, Head of Software for Enterprise Solutions at S&P Global.

The latest innovation from S&P Global and Snowflake is among a number of products and services that vendors are offering as they seek to meet growing demand from financial institutions for private as well as public entity data. Volatility in equity markets and narrowing spreads on once-illiquid fixed-income assets has prompted investors to seek higher returns in alternative assets, such as private equity and credit.

Alternative markets are more opaque than the public markets in which institutions have hitherto largely operated, forcing them to retool their data operations to source intel on companies, funds and lenders. Data on private companies is also often lacking the lineage and metadata to link it to reference and other datasets.

The Global Entity Linking and ESG Data Management Services builds on a collaboration between the two companies forged in 2020 when S&P Global announced that its financial, textual, ESG and alternative data would be made available through Snowflake.

Thai Identity Tech Firm Finema Named Latest Asian Virtual GLEIF Issuer

Finema, a Thailand-based digital identity technology company, has become the first Southeast Asian issuer of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation’s verifiable Legal Entity Identifiers (vLEI).

As a Qualified vLEI Issuer, Finema will be responsible for providing the digital equivalent of GLEIF’s ISO-recognised identity recognition and validation certifier to participating companies in the region.

The vLEI is a virtual identifier that is attached to participating companies and people associated with them, enabling investors and counterpanes to establish a trust-based relationship safe in the knowledge that the organisation is who it claims to be.

Finema is the latest Asian QVI to be announced by GLEIF, following the appointment of China Financial Certification Authority (CFCA) as the first such body in China. GLEIF chief executive Alexandre Kech told Data Management Insight earlier this year that the Basel, Switzerland-based not-for-profit would focus on expanding in Asia as it seeks to bring transparency and trust to often opaque markets.

“Sweeping digitalisation across the global economy provides unprecedented opportunities and incentives to transform the underlying systems organisations use to trust and be trusted,” Kech said after the Finema announcement. “This will free international capital flows and unlock access to the unlimited opportunities of the global market.”

SIX Builds API to Accelerate Database and Security Master Updates

SIX, the data aggregator and operator of financial exchanges in Switzerland and Spain, has launched a new API to accelerate the update of databases and security masters.

The faster data transfer system is designed to enable clients to access and process larger volumes of information, reducing the total cost of data ownership, the Zurich-based organisation said.

The SIX Bulk API is built to ensure market participants have the most up-to-date data to better inform investment, trading, banking, risk management and compliance decision making and reduce processing times from hours to minutes.

Data is delivered through the API in JSON format and can be integrated into multi-threaded Python- or Java-based applications, SIX said in a statement.

“The launch of SIX Bulk API marks a significant milestone in our commitment to innovation and excellence in financial data management,” said SIX Head of Product Development Henk D’Hoore.

“It allows our customer to gain instant access to large data sets and supports super-fast initial load and delta deliveries into their security masters. Financial institutions who wish to move away from traditional file transfer services can now take full control by opting for SIX Bulk API instead.”

GoldenSource Leads Australian Pension Fund’s Digital Transformation

GoldenSource has built an investment data management infrastructure for Australia’s Aware Super, one of the country’s largest superannuation funds, providing the enterprise data management company with a foothold in a country that is forecast to become the world’s second-largest pension market.

Under the first phase of the so-called Project Odin, GoldenSource has deployed its SaaS-based EDM platform as the foundation for a digital transformation of the fund, which oversees the equivalent of US$120 billion in assets.

Operation Odin has also included the integration of the fund’s performance, attribution analytics and reporting tool.

It has been designed to enable the fund to meet an anticipated growth in investment. The Australian pension market was valued at $2.6 trillion in 2024, according to Willis Towers Watson.

“Partnering with GoldenSource has produced the strong foundations of a sophisticated data platform which will not only enable us to stay competitive in a fast-evolving landscape, but maintain our focus on returning the strongest possible risk-adjusted returns for our 1.15 million members,” Michael Clavin, Aware Super Head of Income and Markets and sponsor of Project Odin, said in a statement.

Private Market Data Giant Dun & Bradstreet’s Acquisition Agreed for $7.7bn

Venerable private markets data and analytics giant Dun & Bradstreet has agreed to be acquired in a US$7.7 billion deal that will be partly funded by a debt and equity.

Californian investment private-equity firm Clearlake Capital’s acquisition will take the 184-year old Wall Street company private four years after beginning its second spell as a listed firm.

Dun & Bradstreet is among the largest providers of data and analytics covering private equity and private credit and is also relied upon by investor for its DUNS Number identifiers, paid-for unique identity codes that are used by millions of companies around the world.

The deal comes as the company’s stock languishes 60 per cent below its 2020 listing price, according to Reuters data. Nevertheless, Dun and Bradstreet has found new business as investment in private markets by institutional investors grows. Among its most recent developments, the company has collaborated with LSEG to help the London Stock Exchange operator better compete in the privates data market.

“Dun and Bradstreet has built a trusted, globally recognised brand and has amassed a preeminent set of data and analytics that empower organisations of all sizes,” Clearlake co-founder and managing partner Behdad Eghbali and partner James Pade said in a statement.

“As companies become more data-centric in their decisioning in this fast-paced world, we see vast potential for Dun and Bradstreet to deliver AI-powered solutions to their global client base.”

The deal is “go-shop” arrangement, which permits Dun & Bradstreet to seek better deals from alternative buyers within 30 days of the transaction’s agreement.

According to Bloomberg News, Clearlake sought a $5.75bn bridging loan to fund the acquisition. That’s expected to be converted into longer-term financing via the bonds or leveraged loans markets.