DISCERN Has Raised $20 Million in Funding to Bring Signals as a Service(R) to Investment Professionals

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 8, 2015) - DISCERN, the leader in Signals as a Service^® for Investment Professionals, today announced it has raised a total of $20 million in financing, with its recent Series A round led by Palo Alto-based Artiman Ventures. DISCERN will use the funding to expand its PaaS-based financial decision-making platform and build upon the company's success in the Energy industry to offer modules for Real Estate, Consumer Retail, Banking/Financial Services and other sectors.

"During my 20 years on Wall Street, I saw financial decision-makers suffer significant potential return loss due to antiquated data aggregation, monitoring and analytical processes," said Harry Blount, CEO of DISCERN. "Our Signals as a Service^® platform continuously synthesizes relevant data from the world's most innovative data and content providers, then delivers alerts and personalized views to investment professionals, so they can instantaneously assess new developments to enhance financial returns."

DISCERN was formed as an outgrowth of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) research study Mr. Blount was invited to help conduct. NAS' Committee for Forecasting Future Disruptive Technologies requested his assistance in identifying and reducing the frequency and magnitude of surprise by using data, technology and processes to improve foresight. Following his tenure, Blount formed a team with extensive Wall Street experience to apply his insights to analysis in the asset management world.

"DISCERN's strong team of financial industry experts and unique technology platform make it well-positioned to address the $22 billion investment decision-making market," said Yatin Mundkur, Partner at Artiman Ventures. "We look forward to working with DISCERN as the company enters this new phase of growth and broadens its footprint in additional industry sectors."

"There is a real need to address decision-making on Wall Street," said Larry Sonsini, Chairman of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, former New York Stock Exchange Director, and DISCERN Advisory board member. "Given the growing amount of data out there, investment professionals need more sophisticated, modern ways to find investible relationships among the data. DISCERN's efforts really move the ball forward."

Prior to founding DISCERN, Harry gained more than 20 years of executive and financial experience on Wall Street, including senior roles at Lehman, Credit Suisse First Boston; Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette; and CIBC Oppenheimer. During his tenure on Wall Street, Harry was widely considered a leading analyst in multiple enterprise technology disciplines -- including internet infrastructure, storage, information technology hardware, information technology distribution, wireless and telecommunications. Based on exhaustive polling of buy-side analysts, Harry received the prestigious Institutional Investor ranking as All-American in Information Technology Hardware and Internet Infrastructure Services and the Wall Street Journal has recognized him as an All-Star for the Computer Hardware sector.

DISCERN Signals as a Service^®
DISCERN is a cloud-based platform connecting financial decision-makers to synthesized data and content that is personalized to an individual user's investment process. DISCERN's unique Signals as a Service^® persistently scans the user's universe of real-time data (public and commercial) then signals the user when new, relevant data surfaces.

DISCERN data can be viewed by sector, by company, and/or by the user's own parameters -- essentially automating and substantially enhancing the work of the traditional data research associate. On-demand visualizations make the data easy to analyze and discover non-obvious relationships. The customizable service includes an unlimited number of pre-set, configurable or client-derived thresholds and patterns tied to the user's watchlist.

DISCERN is available on a subscription basis. For a demo and more information about DISCERN solutions, please visit www.discern.com.

About Artiman Ventures
Artiman Ventures is an early-stage Silicon Valley-based venture fund that invests in white space companies that create or disrupt multi-billion dollar markets. The fund has a rich history of working with entrepreneurs for the long term, supplying capital at the concept phase, and helping with all aspects of strategy, market definition and execution.

About DISCERN
DISCERN, the leader in Signals-as-Service^® for Investment Professionals, is developing state-of-the-art web applications to dramatically streamline financial decision-making. Its cloud-based platform synthesizes disparate data into a single browser-accessible location, continually augments the data, and delivers signals on new developments important to financial decision-makers. This allows more time to focus on discovering actionable insights. Domain experts guide the company's data curation efforts, collectively covering energy, real estate, banking, consumer retail and macroeconomic sectors. Known for its Signals as a Service® offering, the company was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York.

Signals as a Service^® is a registered trademark owned by DISCERN. All other trademarks and registered trademarks in this document are the properties of their respective owners.