Dataminr

Using real time social media analytics to provide business, news and catastrophe warning insights faster than traditional information sources

Key facts

• Dataminr¹ was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in New York. It has approximately150 employees and has received $180 million of funding. After a recent round of funding (in 2015), it was valued at $700 million.
• Dataminr is a service that reads Twitter streams, public datasets and other unconventional sources of information and transforms them into actionable insights for clients.
• Using proprietary algorithms, Dataminr instantly analyses all public tweets and other publicly available data to deliver the earliest indications of breaking news or real-world events.

Uniqueness

• Dataminr for Finance, is currently used by hedge funds and investment banks to get early market-moving information and gain perspective and context from non-traditional sources.
• In partnership with Twitter, Dataminr developed and launched Dataminr for News, which alerts journalists to breaking news in advance of traditional sources, it is now used by hundreds of news organizations globally.
• They also offer a service for public-sector clients, and they have also launched a product for security- and crisis-management watch centres that warns of emerging threats and crises.

Value

• Dataminr for Finance provides users with a new source of key insights. For example, Dataminr notified clients before major media outlets on how Merck made a $12 billion acquisition offer for Alkermes (ALKS) a pharmaceutical company. Later that day the ALKS share price ended up >10% – critical information for investors to act upon.
• Dataminr for News helps journalists keep an eye on all of Twitter, alerting users to real-time leads to investigate. Journalists don’t have to watch a stream of information – the most actionable Tweets find them thanks to Dataminr’s advanced analytic capabilities.

Approach

• Dataminr has partnered with Twitter to gain access to their database of tweets. They analyse over 500 million tweets per day with their patented algorithms, they then score, tag, classify, cluster and evaluate the data.
• Next they determine the level or urgency of the information and match it with their customer interests.
• Lastly, they push out the notifications seamlessly across mobile, email, custom user interfaces and client systems.

Footnote:
1. Sources: Dataminr; Business Insider; Biz Journals; WSJ; WEF/Accenture Analysis