Capital Markets & Trading | Toronto, ON | Founded: 2012 | Employees: 44 | www.streetcontxt.com
PHONE: (844) 480-9011 | LINKEDIN PROFILE
Last updated November 26, 2018 | To download a PDF version, click here.
Company Overview
Street Contxt brands themselves as a global knowledge platform for institutional finance. This means that the company enables sell side brokerages and independent research firms to connect with buyers of research, macro commentary, and content distributed from the trading floor. Information is provided through a platform for sellers and buyers. The platform provides buyers with the most appropriate content, based on their readership trends and interests, tracked through smart data technology and machine learning. Street Contxt is shaping a more effective capital markets system, and becoming a leader in knowledge management.
Senior Management
Blair Livingston: CEO and Founder of Street Contxt (Oct 2012 – present). Previously: Employee, IEX Group, Inc. (Jan 2012 – Sept 2012); Equity Sales & Trading Analyst, RBC Capital Markets (Sept 2011 – Jan 2012). Education: BBA, Finance (2011), Wilfrid Laurier University.
Mike Pettypiece: CTO of Street Contxt (Mar 2013 – present). Previously: Senior Software Developer, Points.com (Apr 2012 – Mar 2013); Senior Software Developer, Impact Mobile (Apr 2007 – Apr 2012); Software Development Manager, Embarcadero Technologies (Apr 2003 – Apr 2007); Software Developer, MobileQ (May 2000 – Apr 2003). Education: BMATH, Computer Science (2000), University of Waterloo.
History
After working in both sell side and buy side roles, including work in Capital Markets at RBC and buy side representation at IEX Group, Blair Livingston saw an opportunity. He drew from his insights into the financial world, leading him to realize an important gap in connecting sell side research content with the preferences of buy side participants. In 2012, Blair founded Street Contxt to address the need for tailored information and research through new platform technologies that provide detailed statistics and recommended articles to content readers and producers.[1]
[1] https://streetcontxt.com/press
Funding
Street Contxt has had two major funding rounds. The first major round was Series A funding in January 2016 when the new FinTech raised USD $8,000,000 from Formation 8. The second major round (series unknown) was in April 2017 for USD $4,000,000 from Portag3, Point72, Palm Drive Capital, and again from Formation 8. Total funding consensus is USD $15,000,000 however specifics on series and dates is unclear other than Series A. Additional funding companies that the Street Contxt website mentions include INOVIA VC and Social Leverage.[2][3]
[2] https://www.crunchbase.com/search/funding_rounds/field/organization/num_funding_rounds/street-contxt
[3] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170405005101/en/Street-Contxt-Announces-Investment-Led-Point72-Ventures
Key Corporate Developments
Press Releases: https://streetcontxt.com/news
January 6, 2016: Street Contxt raises USD $8,000,000 in Series A funding
April 5, 2017: Street Contxt Announces Investment Led by Point72 Ventures & Joe Lonsdale’s 8VC
May 15, 2018: Street Contxt launched an all-you-can-eat research distribution platform
Business Highlights
Strategy
Street Contxt uses a software platform providing web and mobile access to two target markets:
- Sell-side Content Creators – This is a highly-fragmented space where financial institutions are individually producing endless amounts of research, commentary, and trading floor generated content. These sell-side producers then individually distribute this content to buy-side client lists in a highly inefficient manner.
- Buy-side Content Consumers – Buy-side clients receive thousands of articles and emails with sell-side content. The volume and lack of customization in content means articles are ignored or undervalued.
Street Contxt is looking at addressing these two groups by aggregating sell-side content and providing tailored information to buy-side consumers based on the specific user preferences and past readership statistics.
Products/Pricing
- Edge (Variable subscription fee)[4]: Street Contxt positions this business line as a client-relationship solution in the Sales & Trading Capital Markets space. Edge has three main components that allow for a better understanding of your clients, maximizing high-value and well-timed client conversations. First, you can view which of your clients have opened your content so you can better target your client base. Second, Edge allows the ability to view readership trends of your clients to ensure you are proactively covering them. Third, Edge shows you which clients are forwarding material and where it’s going to maximize your ability to reach the whole market. The knowledge management platform ensures you are fully up to date on your coverage effectiveness, which increases your business and helps maintain your coverage efficiency.
- Exchange Contributors (Variable subscription fee)[5]: Through the Street Contxt platform, you can profitably cover and engage with buy-side research readers. The Exchange allows providers to monetize their written content and maximize their exposure in a market-place style platform where content can be viewed by all.
- Exchange Subscribers ($99/month)[6]: Subscribers enjoy the “all-you-can-eat” style research platform where contributors have posted content. Here, you can read articles from over 100 institutional content providers. The access to global coverage from brokers and independent research firms maximizes a subscriber’s exposure to different articles that have specific insights tailored to their interests and research needs.
[4] https://streetcontxt.com/edge
[5] https://streetcontxt.com/exchange-contributors
[6] https://streetcontxt.com/exchange-subscribers
Technology
Street Contxt is a market maker for financial content, that utilizes their online platform for financial institutions to read or contribute content, as well as manage clients through smart-data insights. Artificial intelligence, through big data analytics and predictive machine learning, allows the platform to connect the most relevant content by accurately categorizing and recommending custom research tailored to individual subscribers.
Distribution/Logistics
The Street Contxt Exchange platform is offered online where readers and contributors congregate to a centralized knowledge platform. There is currently one office in Toronto where the team develops and sells the system online.
Marketing
Street Contxt has a network of large institutional clients on both the buy and sell side of financial markets. There is a sales team to manage new businesses and a client service team to maintain relationships.
Competitors
There are many financial resource / content providers that aim at providing a global platform of knowledge and information around all asset classes. The following are three of the biggest which all provide access to research:
- Bloomberg – Platform connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas.
- S&P Capital IQ – Platform for research, data, and analysis to help financial markets perform analysis.
- Thomson Reuters – Platform for news and information for professional markets.
Corporate Profile Created By: Colin Nowers, Engineering/Ivey HBA 2019