Theia Insights raises $6.5m for platform at intersection of AI and finance
Theia Insights, a Cambridge-based deep tech start-up providing insights for investors, has raised $6.5million to develop its foundational AI for the global investment community.
Incorporated in 2022 by CEO and former Amazon Alexa scientist Dr Ye Tian, Theia operates “at the intersection of AI and finance” by synthesising and distilling vast amounts of financial information so investors can make better decisions.
“How well do you really know what’s inside your investment?” asks Dr Tian, who has an academic background in natural language processing (NLP) and AI.
“Every day there are billions of new data points on the economy, the markets, the company, the technologies… how do you know what is driving the ups and down of your pension fund, your portfolios or your stocks? What risks are you exposed to and how do you mitigate against that?”
The funding round was led by Silicon Valley’s Unusual Ventures, with participation from Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, and LA-based Clocktower Ventures, alongside a number of strategic angels.
Headquartered in Delaware in the US, the Cambridge subsidiary has been established on Hills Road.
“We plan to build the team out of Cambridge,” notes Dr Tian.
Theia currently has a team of three in the US, one in Canada and eight in Cambridge – a highly skilled team of experts from Nasdaq, Morgan Stanley, Meta, UC Berkeley’s economics department, Amazon Alexa, AWS and the University of Cambridge’s computer science department.
“Good investment decisions require clarity, and that is where AI can play an unrivalled role, by lifting us from the valley to the mountain top, so we can choose the paths we want to take by seeing where every path leads and how they connect,” says Dr Tian of the company, which derives its name from Theia, the Greek goddess of sight.
Theia Insights’ products and solutions are built upon a foundation of academic and proprietary research and incorporate the latest developments in AI, machine learning, natural language processing, large language models (LLM), and “technologies grounded in advanced financial mathematics.
The company serves a diverse range of corporate clients, such as asset and wealth managers, ETF (exchange traded funds) issuers, Index providers, investment banks, fintechs and the broader financial services ecosystem.
“We don’t give advice in what you should be investing in,” Dr Tian says in a video call with the Cambridge Independent. “We tell you what the companies do and what drives their stock market valuation.”
Henry O’Brien, COO at Theia Insights, adds: “We provide tools to investors, so it’s rather like a Bloomberg service, but the clients make their separate investment decisions. Our insights give investors a more holistic view of what they’re investing in – it’s far more granular than what they’re used to.”
Subscribers to the service currently are billed for an annual licence or a monthly subscription.
Lars Albright, general partner at Unusual Ventures, said: “The shortcomings around legacy industry classification systems and the lack of dynamic insights on risk factors driving investment decisions is a pressing issue.
“After meeting and getting to know Theia, we were impressed with their bold vision, their technical ability and the team they have assembled to tackle this substantial problem.”