• YELP Dataset - Tracks Paying Advertiser Accounts, Request-a-Quote penetration, and major accounts by category and geography. (YipitData)
• Cryptocurrency Dataset - Tracks investor sentiment on nearly 100 cryptocurrencies using post data from over 40,000 monthly investors. (Integrity Research, subscription required)

• Bridg - Credit card data provider for restaurant industry.
• Venpath - Geo-location provider sourcing from 212 apps and 61m unique monthly devices.
• Safegraph - Geo-location data from over 50m mobile devices, tracked to 15m POI and 1000 brands. Has raised $16m in funding.
• X-mode -  Geo-location data on 30m monthly active users, obtained from 300+ apps.
• Anonymous Provider - Data on 20% of US household moves, available 4-8 weeks before the move event. Insight into retail (regional demographic shifts), insurance, cable/internet, and banking. Contact data@alternativedata.org for more information.
• Drillinginfo - Data on exploration & production, oilfield services, midstream, and financial services.
• Rigdata - Drilling activity data with over 25 years experience covering US, Gulf of Mexico, and Western Canada oil & gas industry.
• MarketCheck - Auto data provider with active inventory for over 35k US car dealers.
• TVeyes - Data on brand placements in TV and radio, including logo and object recognition.
• PriceStats - Data on online prices tracking inflation in 22 economies. (Institutional Investor)
• Optimum Complexity - Risk analysis data for assessing tickers based on organizational complexity.
• Legis - Prediction data on Congressional bill outcomes. (Economist)
• Associated Press - Ticker level data on text archives, real time news, and human-curated database of 140k upcoming potentially newsworthy events.
• Alpha Hat - Visualization platform focused on geolocation data with plans to expand to multiple datasets.
• See full public database of 270 data providers.

• Datastreamx, a data broker, announces blockchain-based network for decentralized data access. Smart contracts will set rules for data usage and payment. Network will launch in April 2018, but no ICO date is set. (Medium)
• Crux Informatics, a data infrastructure provider, announces investment from Citi, increasing total funding to $21m. (PRnewswire)

New Jobs

• Sector Data Specialist - Balyasny Asset Management (New York, Chicago)
• See 59 other openings for Investment Research, Data Analyst, Data Engineer, and Data Scientist

News & Insights

• Funds with in-house alternative data processing capabilities, including State Street and MSCI, are building related ETFs to sell to the competition. They are betting that smaller firms will get broad alternative data exposure through the ETFs, rather than the expensive process of building alternative data capabilities themselves. (Institutional Investor)
• Schroders data insights team does not believe that wide access to the same alternative data sources arbitrages away alpha. Rather, they claim that the more data sources teams incorporate, the more possible permutations of analyses emerge, suggesting that ubiquitous alternative datasets still have unique value for each firm. (Morningstar)
• Pledge to enact new cyber security standards for fintech firms may impact how Yodlee can access financial data. (Financial Times, subscription required)
• Foursquare, a geo-location provider, reports that “mall death” is overstated, and that attendance at high-end luxury malls is actually on the rise. (Yahoo Finance)
• Two data providers predict probability of bills passing in Congress.
  • Skopos Labs provides both outcome predictions and valuation impact forecasts on the ticker level. (Skopos Labs)
  • Legis has correctly forecasted the outcome for the first 44 bills for which it has issued predictions. (Economist)
• Key takeaways from the Augvest-hosted geo-location panel:
  • Cell tower data, the most common geo-location data, is far less accurate than GPS or wifi.
  • Geo-location providers are differentiated by the app types that they work with (and the resulting bias of their sample) and whether they provide useful analyses/products on top of the raw data. Reveal and X-Mode provide raw data, while Safegraph and Cuebiq deliver features layered on.
• Point72 names Kirk McKeown director of proprietary research. He will oversee Aperio, Data Sourcing and Strategy, and Point of the Spear, with the goal of aligning communication between investment managers and data scientists. (Financial Adviser - Private Wealth)
• Marine Traffic, a ship-tracking provider, gives insight into the whereabouts of yacht seized by FBI off the coast of Bali in relation to the 1MDB scandal. (WSJ,subscription required)

Upcoming Events

• Alternative data adoption: Risks and rewards for investment management - (Deloitte Webcast, April 24, 2 p.m. ET)[yikes-mailchimp form="1"]