UPDATED 15:11 EDT / JUNE 15 2022

AI

AlphaSense reels in $225M for its AI-powered enterprise search platform

AlphaSense Inc., the developer of a search platform used by Google LLC, Microsoft Corp. and other large enterprises, today announced that it has raised a late-stage $225 million funding round at a $1.7 billion valuation.

Goldman Sachs and Viking Global Investors led the Series D round. According to AlphaSense, the round included a “substantial debt investment” that was provided by BlackRock earlier this year. 

New York-based AlphaSense provides a search platform that promises to help users more easily navigate large volumes of business information. The platform can run search queries on multiple types of data. AlphaSense’s algorithms can scan regulatory filings, news articles and a company’s internal business documents, as well as reports from more than 1,500 research providers and other types of information. 

The startup’s platform is particularly popular in the financial sector. According to AlphaSense, its platform is used by finance professionals at 70% of the top asset management firms and banks to support their work. Users can run search queries to collect information about market trends, as well as find more granular data points such as the rate at which a software firm’s revenue grew in the past quarter.

AlphaSense uses artificial intelligence algorithms to generate search results. According to the startup, its algorithms prioritize results based on their importance to increase user productivity. A feature called Smart Synonyms helps the platform surface relevant data more efficiently: If a user runs a search query to retrieve information about self-driving car companies, the feature can surface documents containing similar terms such as “autonomous vehicle”.

AlphaSense says that its platform’s feature set is not limited to financial sector use cases. Companies in other industries can use the platform as well for tasks such as tracking the business initiatives of a competitor and finding acquisition opportunities. According to AlphaSense, its platform includes an alerting tool that can help a company quickly learn of important developments in its market.

AlphaSense’s annual recurring revenue topped $100 million in the past year after its customer base more than doubled to 3,500 organizations. The startup now counts 78% of the S&P 100 and 97% of the Dow 50 among its customers, along with numerous other large enterprises. 

AlphaSense plans to continue its revenue momentum by investing in new features and growing the amount of business data available through its platform. In parallel, the startup plans to make more “strategic transactions,” which likely means that it can be expected to acquire other companies. AlphaSense has acquired two business data providers in the past year. 

“This round of funding will allow AlphaSense to invest in our growth and capitalize on opportunities to expand our content sets and improve our value offering, furthering our mission to help companies across all industries make better decisions with greater confidence and speed,” said AlphaSense Chief Executive Officer Jack Kokko.

AlphaSense is the latest in a series of startups with enterprise-focused search products to have raised funding over the past year. In May, Glean Technologies Inc. raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation to help business users more easily navigate data scattered across their companies’ internal systems. Earlier, Algolia Inc. closed a $150 million funding round that valued it at $2.25 billion.

Image: AlphaSense

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU