The recent growth achieved by ACE Consensus has seen in included in the annual GrowthBusiness Tech Innovators listing.
The start-up secured venture backing in the third quarter of 2013 and is targeting a platform launch at the end of the summer.
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Based in: Oxford and London Founded in: 2013 No. of employees: 2 full time and 5 contractors Company founder: Alex Money |
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Founder profile:
Formerly a city fund manager, Alex Money spent ten years working as an investor relations consultant to some of Europe’s largest listed companies, addressing the various challenges presented by low quality information on market expectations; before developing ACE as a solution to the problems he’d encountered.
Background business profile:
ACE Consensus produces detailed, high quality insight into market expectations. It does so by collating forecasts from financial analysts on a consistent, comprehensive and timely basis. By using a bespoke template for each company on the platform, ACE also delivers an unparalleled depth of segmental forecast information.
Inside track:
Having become frustrated with the inefficient system he was using whilst running his investor relations consultancy, Money decided he could do a better job – and set about doing just that.
With the process dominated by phone calls and riddled with wasteful practices, Money believed that technology could facilitate an improvement and accuracy. He bootstrapped a prototype product and took that out to a few companies to gain some feedback.
After taking the raw demo round, Money and his team were taken on by a FTSE 100 business – providing the kind of validation they thought was there. Financing from the Oxford Seed Fund followed soon after, a sum Money describes as a ‘small amount’ but enough to develop a network and talk to others.
Explaining the kind of hurdles that ACE Consensus has had to negotiate to get to where it is, Money says, ‘The process of getting a new platform built involved a lot of talking to analysts to find out what they needed and wanted.
‘Trying to process all of that was hard, working out what was needed verses what would just be nice.’
When quizzed on how regulation in the space might affect future growth, Money presses that it will work for them in a positive way. With the product being developed, ACE is trying to deliver a high-quality data set but also a good audit trail.
Looking forward, Money says the business needs to hit certain levels of penetration. He segments the market in terms of UK FTSE 350 and all-share AIM, with different approaches for each. The start-up’s other main target is STOXX Europe 600.
Recent milestones:
- Seed Investment from Said Business School Seed Fund
- SEIS Investment from VC-backed Jenson Funding Partners
- Software developers completing first Sprint of new build
Upcoming milestones:
- Platform launch in September 2014
- Additional funding round in Q4
Recent technology:
ACE is built using the Agile methodology, a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organising, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery, a time-boxed iterative approach, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.
Products:
- ACE for listed companies
- ACE for analysts
- ACE for investors
Alliances:
- Informal alliances in place
- Formal alliances under development
Investors:
- Angel investors
- SBS Seed Fund
- Jenson Funding Partners
Contact details:
Level 39, One Canada Square, London E14 5AB
Tel: 0203 289 5300
Email: hello@aceconsensus.com
Website: www.aceconsensus.com
