Quantopian, one of Boston’s up-and-coming financial technology startups, got a big endorsement today from a well-known Silicon Valley venture firm.
Quantopian said it raised $25 million in a Series C funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. (Technically it was $25.6 million, per an SEC filing.) Other investors in the round include earlier backers Bessemer Venture Partners, Point72 Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Spark Capital. Quantopian said it previously raised $23.8 million in venture capital.
The company describes itself as a “crowd-sourced quantitative investment firm.” Finance professionals, scientists, software developers, and students from around the world can access gobs of financial data and educational tools through Quantopian and use the startup’s software to develop and test algorithms that make investment decisions. Quantopian licenses promising investment algorithms from its members and makes investments based on those algorithms. If an algorithm generates financial returns, the author gets a cut.
In a press release, Quantopian said it will invest the Series C money in improving its software tools and education materials, and gathering more financial data for its more than 100,000 members. The startup is also building out its investment management operations, as it prepares to begin managing money for external investors early next year. In July, Point72’s Steve Cohen committed up to $250 million to be managed by Quantopian.
Quantopian’s rise speaks to a shift toward more quantitative and automated decision making in the financial industry, as well as an attempt to enable people located far beyond Wall Street to play a larger role in the investing world.
The company was founded in 2011 by John Fawcett and Jean Bredeche.
