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Rosetta Analytics currently raising Series A financing

Rosetta Analytics currently raising Series A financing

TIM LEEMASTER

Rosetta Analytics, the Woodridge, Illinois-based asset management firm using AI, is currently raising Series A funding, founders Julia Bonafede and Angelo Calvello say.

The round is expected to close before the end of the first half. They declined to say how much they planned to raise.

The company operates two investment products using deep learning to predict movements in the S&P 500 and plans to launch a third using reinforcement learning in March.

The new product will focus on absolute returns and have a carbon strategy.

One challenge the company faces is convincing their former colleagues in the asset management industry of the potential for AI, the founders say.

That’s ironic as Bonafede spent the early part of her career convincing the industry of the benefits of factor investing.

“There’s 50-60 years of research that supports quantitative investing,” Bonafede says. “It’s difficult to walk away from and it’s entrenched in their belief system.”

It takes time to educate people, she adds.

Bonafede spent 24 years at Wilshire Associates, the Los Angeles-based investment management firm. Calvello co-founded Blue Diamond Asset Management, a hedge fund, and worked at Man Investments and State Street.

“We started [Rosetta] frustrated with traditional investing,” Calvello says. “There are a lot of people that are well intentioned and really smart but it’s just hard to create excess return on a consistent basis.”

The company plans to bring in two or three more data science and research staff. It currently has five employees.

Rosetta started in 2016 with a few million in startup funding and has continued to receive support from investors, the founders say. That includes Verger Capital, the North Carolina investment vehicle for non-profits. The Wake Forest University endowment is one of Verger’s investors.


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