Goldman Sachs leads $15 mln round for Kensho

Kensho has secured $15 million in funding. Goldman Sachs led the round. As a result of the transaction, Goldman Sachs is now the largest strategic investor in Kensho and will join the firm’s board as an observer. Also, Kensho has added Rana Yared, a managing director in Goldman’s securities division, to its board of directors while Don Duet, global co-head of Goldman’s tech division, will join Kensho’s advisory board. Kensho is a provider of cloud-based computer solutions that answer financial and market research questions.

PRESS RELEASE

NEW YORK and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — Kensho today announced that Goldman Sachs has led a $15 million investment round in Kensho, and has entered a strategic partnership to use Kensho’s real-time statistical computing and analytics technology across the firm.

Kensho is a next-generation analytics platform for investment professionals that instantly and clearly answers millions of permutations of complex financial questions, automating previously human-intensive knowledge work by harnessing massively-parallel statistical computing, user-friendly visual interfaces and breakthroughs in unstructured data engineering.

“Our unique partnership with Kensho is an extension of our overall strategy of using and investing in new technology which allows us to deliver insights to our clients. We are excited to work with Kensho to develop user-friendly big data analytics tools which can be put into the hands of our client facing teams,” said Tony Pasquariello, Co-Head of North American Equity Derivatives Sales in the Securities Division.

With this investment, Goldman Sachs becomes the largest strategic investor in Kensho, and will join the board as an observer. Kensho named Rana Yared, Managing Director in the Securities Division at Goldman Sachs, to its board of directors. Don Duet, global co-head of Goldman Sachs’ Technology Division, will join Kensho’s Advisory Board.

“From leading the electronic trading revolution to this most recent move into accessible, real-time analytics, Goldman Sachs has always been at the forefront of the movement toward more transparent markets,” said Daniel Nadler, CEO of Kensho. “We are proud to partner with Goldman Sachs around the vision that real-time statistical computing systems and scalable analytics architectures represent the next-generation of improvements to the global financial system.”

About Kensho:

Kensho is empowering the largest financial institutions in the world with technology that brings transparency to markets. Kensho is pioneering real-time statistical computing systems and scalable analytics architectures—the next generation of improvements to the global financial system. Kensho harnesses massively-parallel statistical computing, user-friendly visual interfaces and breakthroughs in unstructured data engineering to create the next-generation analytics platform for investment professionals. Addressing the most significant challenges surrounding investment analysis on Wall Street today—achieving speed, scale, and automation of previously human-intensive knowledge work—Kensho’s intelligent computer systems are capable of answering complex financial questions posed in plain English, and in real-time. Kensho was founded out of MIT and Harvard in 2013. Kensho’s engineers come from veteran positions at Google, Apple, and Facebook.

About Goldman Sachs:

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of financial services to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world.