New York Post

Data-providing not a terminal case

- By CATHERINE CURAN

Alap Shah wants to reinvent one of Wall Street’s favorite wheels.

Sentieo, the new firm founded by the 35-year-old former hedge fund analyst, is the latest upstart financial data platform seeking a slice of the lucrative financial informatio­n provider market long synonymous with Bloomberg’s famous terminals.

Sentieo has signed up 85 finance clients, including hedge funds and investment banks.

They pay $500 to $1,000 a month — far less than the roughly $21,000 annual cost of a Bloomberg terminal.

Shah claims Sentieo stands out for fast, detailed equity research results that are easily synced across mobile devices.

Two titans dominate this market: Bloomberg, which racked up $8.9 billion in financial markets revenue last year, and Thomson Reuters, with $6.5 billion in financial markets revenue, according to consultant Burton-Taylor. But small upstarts see an opportunit­y for user-friendly serv- ices at cut-rate prices.

“In a mobile world, people want things faster and more easily,” says Hamza Khan, 29, head of commoditie­s strategy at ING Bank in Amsterdam and a fan of newcomer trading platform Money.net.

Sentieo, which officially launched last month, joins other challenger­s — including Money.net and Gold- man Sachs-backed Symphony, a financial messaging platform — that are taking aim at segments of Bloomberg’s business.

Money.net has tripled its subscriber base to more than 30,000 individual­s in two years, plus eight of the 10 largest US banks, founder Morgan Downey told The Post.

Subscripti­ons cost $150 a month.

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