CHCAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Shawn Carpenter, co-founder and CEO of YCharts, the Financial Terminal of the Web, announced the closing of a C round of venture funding of about $6 million and the appointment of Jeremy Diamond as chief revenue officer of YCharts. These moves coincide with an acceleration of the company’s growth.
A summary of YCharts developments:
--Diamond, 42 years old, is one of the most prominent sales and business development executives in the financial information industry, having helped build the platform now known as S&P Capital IQ from a startup to a $30 million company in its early years. Most recently, Diamond was head of buy side solutions for Morningstar, where he worked for three years. He will now lead an enterprise sales team at YCharts, strengthening the company’s relationships with the largest users of financial terminals.
--YCharts’ fourth round of venture funding was led by Morningstar and included large investments by Reed Elsevier, I2A, Amicus Capital Partners, Hyde Park Angels and prominent individuals. YCharts will use the additional capital to accelerate the growth of a sales team that is on pace to deliver an end-2015 revenue run rate three times the 2014 level.
--YCharts’ rapid growth is the result of a single-minded focus since its founding in 2010 on building a competitive platform, which now offers sophisticated and easy-to-use analytics across asset classes – including stocks, mutual funds, ETFs and economic indicators – and compares favorably in performance and price with established industry players. The platform is becoming the tool of choice for registered investment advisors (RIAs) and wealth managers and is employed by roughly one million users a month.
--YCharts has formed strategic relationships with Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Commonwealth, Dynasty and others. These partnerships make the YCharts platform available to many thousands of leading investment advisors at an attractive price point.
“YCharts is entering its high-growth phase and this latest round of capital, along with the addition of Jeremy Diamond to our senior management team, positions us to fully realize the potential of an analytics platform we believe is second-to-none,” said Carpenter. “This latest capital raise brings to $14.5 million the funds committed to YCharts, and we’ll continue building the size of our sales organization throughout 2015.”
Joe Mansueto, chairman and CEO of Morningstar, said: “YCharts has ambitious plans. We’re pleased to make an additional investment in the business and think Jeremy will add tremendous value to the firm.”
Diamond, previously the Morningstar representative on the YCharts board, will remain a director. “I’m very excited to be part of the growth that lies ahead for YCharts,” Diamond said. “I've been an advisor to the business for years, so it is a natural move for me to join full-time to drive revenue growth by scaling a world class sales team.”
In addition to RIAs and wealth managers, portfolio managers, hedge funds, venture capital firms, private equity funds and consultants use the YCharts platform.
Ara Anjargolian, co-founder and CTO of YCharts, said: “We knew from day one that it would take four-to-five years to build our platform to compete in the professional segment of the market. We got there in mid-2014, and now we’re scaling a world-class sales organization.” Anjargolian added: “We’ll never stop improving on the platform. Every month we’re adding functions and features sought by our clients.”
The latest investment round closed May 4. Diamond joined YCharts earlier this month.
YCharts, by providing extensive data on more than 20,000 equities, 2,500 ETFs, 40,000 mutual funds and 400,000 economic indicators, empowers investment professionals and others to conduct analysis with a powerful and easy-to-use web-based financial terminal. While the tools are on par with those at wire houses and asset management firms, YCharts’ pricing makes a high level of functionality widely available.