Co-founded by Jack Kokko and Raj Neervannan, the market intelligence platform AlphaSense joins the unicorn club at a $1.7 billion valuation after raising $225M in a Series D round co-led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Viking Global Investors, with a debt investment by BlackRock. This is also a mark for the startup’s first investor Espoo-based VC firm Vendep Capital since AlphaSense is the first unicorn in its portfolio. To date, Vendep Capital has invested in the seed, Series A and B rounds of the New York-based startup that also has offices in the US, UK, Finland, Germany, and India. This new capital will feed AlphaSense’s growth and enables the company to work more on product development and customer success.
AlphaSense’s Valuation Jumps to $1.7 Billion with $225 Million Series D Led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Viking Global
Increase in valuation driven by strong business performance at significant scale, with AlphaSense more than doubling its user and customer base in the past year and surpassing $100 million in recurring revenue
New York-based AlphaSense, the leading market intelligence and search platform, today announced its $225 million Series D financing round led by the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Goldman Sachs) and Viking Global Investors. The financing values the company at $1.7 billion, which is nearly double the valuation from its $180 million Series C funding in September 2021 that was also led by Goldman Sachs and Viking Global. This new funding round includes a substantial debt investment from funds and/or accounts managed by BlackRock earlier this year.
The valuation increase is commensurate with AlphaSense’s rapid and sustained growth and follows the achievement of key revenue and product milestones; notably, annual recurring revenue (ARR) now exceeds $100 million. In addition, AlphaSense experienced significant gains in other key metrics, including user and customer base, which both grew by well over 100% in the past year. AlphaSense’s base of 3,500 customers now includes over 78% of the S&P 100, 97% of the Dow 50, 70% of the top asset management firms and banks, and leading companies in wide-ranging industries such as energy, industrials, consumer goods, and technology, with the platform appealing to knowledge workers across a wide range of roles including strategy, competitive intelligence, investor relations, corporate development, and financial analysis.
AlphaSense’s platform leverages proprietary search technology powered by AI and NLP to extract relevant insights from an extensive universe of public and private content, including company filings, earnings transcripts, expert interview transcripts, news, trade journals, and equity research. Having on-demand access to key data points and insights enables professionals to make critical decisions with confidence and speed, thus improving business performance and outcomes.
“We are excited to upsize our investment in AlphaSense,” said Holger Staude, a Managing Director within the Growth Equity business at Goldman Sachs. “Achieving high organic growth and strong business fundamentals while exceeding $100 million in ARR is a substantial accomplishment and demonstrates the team’s focus on building an enduring business in a large market.”
John Doyle, Director of Venture Lending at BlackRock, added, “AlphaSense’s impressive growth and high-quality customer base reflect the power of its platform to substantially improve productivity and enable smarter data-driven decisions for users across industries and roles. We are excited about our debt investment in AlphaSense at this important stage in its evolution.”
The capital infusion will be used to further invest in product development, content expansion and customer support, and to drive organic growth as well as strategic transactions. Recent acquisitions include the purchase in October 2021 of Stream by Mosaic, provider of a leading library of expert interview transcripts, as well as the purchase of Sentieo, a financial intelligence platform designed for investors, which closed last month.
“We are thrilled by the continued support of preeminent investors like Goldman Sachs and Viking and the addition of BlackRock as we embark on the next chapter of our growth,” said Jack Kokko, CEO of AlphaSense.
“This round of funding will allow AlphaSense to invest in our growth and capitalize on opportunities to expand our content sets and improve our value offering, furthering our mission to help companies across all industries make better decisions with greater confidence and speed.”
Click here to read more funding news.
Originally published on ArcticStartup : Original article