Quantopian Secures $6.7M in Series A Financing From Khosla Ventures and Spark Capital

New Funds Position Trading and Data Science Startup to Bring Automated Finance to the Masses


BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Oct 2, 2013) - Quantopian, the world's first browser-based algorithmic trading platform, today announced $6.7M in Series A financing from Khosla Ventures and existing investor Spark Capital. This brings the company's total funding to date to $8.8M. The new funding will be used to enhance the cloud-based platform and fuel growth as Quantopian builds a community of quants larger than all of Wall Street combined.

Quantopian helps make quants successful investors by giving them access to the power of data science through a robust platform for creating algorithms, unfettered access to a decade's worth of trading data for backtesting, the ability to import any external data set, and a seamless connection to market execution. Since launching in early 2013 the company has experienced tremendous growth, recently launching live trading in beta, hitting 10,000 users and hiring former Thomson Reuters executive Jessica Stauth as vice president of quant strategy.

"Systematic and automated investing is where the entire financial industry is heading, and the quants in our community are at the front of the wave," said John 'Fawce' Fawcett, founder and chief executive officer at Quantopian. "Our community today is learning and using the tools that every investor will soon want."

"Quantopian is building a strong community of smart people," said Andrew Parker, principal at Spark Capital, "and it takes a robust technology platform to do so. Quantopian is changing the structure of the quantitative finance by connecting individual investors with unprecedented access to data and the infrastructure to put it to use."

"What excites me about Quantopian is the potential of the open platform to create a whole new category of investment possibilities by giving anyone with an analytical mind access to sophisticated tools, data and algorithms that have previously been behind the walls of the largest investment and trading firms," said Ben Ling, investment partner at Khosla Ventures. "It is still the early days, but with the combination of the core technology platform and the community of the smartest quantitative minds, Quantopian is building the next era of investment."

About Quantopian

Quantopian is a browser-based algorithmic trading platform with the power of cutting-edge data science. The platform combines the flexibility to instantly integrate any data with the simplicity to get started developing in minutes. Quantopian makes the full potential of quantitative trading available to investors by giving them access to the power of data science. Quantopian gives people access to the tools, capabilities and community they need to create and optimize their own trading algorithms in an open and transparent environment, and then put those algorithms to work in the live market. Quantopian is also an engaged community where people can discuss concepts, processes and performance and learn from peers and experts. The result is a better way to understand -- and profit from -- quantitative trading. Quantopian is headquartered in Boston. Learn more at www.quantopian.com, or visit us at the Quantopian blog, or follow us on Twitter @quantopian.

About Spark Capital

Spark Capital is a venture capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs seeking to build disruptive, world-changing companies. Founded in 2005, the firm manages approximately $1,500,000,000 across four funds. Headquartered in Boston, Spark maintains an office in New York and invests across the globe. Spark Capital focuses on Internet and mobile investments across the following key categories: advertising & monetization, commerce & services, content & media, financial services, hardware & infrastructure, mobile and social. For more information, visit www.sparkcapital.com.

About Khosla Ventures

Khosla Ventures offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to entrepreneurs. The firm helps entrepreneurs extend the potential of their ideas in breakthrough scientific work in clean technology areas such as bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, battery and other environmentally friendly technologies as well as traditional venture areas like the Internet, computing, mobile and silicon technology arenas. Vinod Khosla founded the firm in 2004 and was formerly a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins and founder of Sun Microsystems. Khosla Ventures is based in Menlo Park, California. More information is available at www.khoslaventures.com.

Company ProfileQuantopian