Fledgling fintech startup OpenBB is revealing the subsequent step in its plans to tackle the heavyweights of the funding analysis world. The corporate is launching a brand new, free model of a product that can open its arsenal of information and monetary tooling to extra customers.
OpenBB is the handiwork of software program engineer Didier Lopes, who launched the Python-based platform again in 2021 as a manner for novice traders and fans to do funding analysis utilizing completely different datasets without spending a dime, through a command line interface (CLI). The corporate went on to boost $8.5 million in seed funding from OSS Capital and angel traders reminiscent of Ram Shriram, an early backer of Google.
Whereas the community-based, open-source mission has amassed some 50,000 customers, OpenBB has additionally been constructing an enterprise incarnation referred to as Terminal Professional. This paid model provides groups entry to an interface; pre-built database integrations; an Excel add-in; and varied safety and help bolt-ons that will attraction to bigger companies.
OpenBB claims some big-name prospects that embody transport and logistics firm Pangaea Logistics Options and an unnamed funding agency, which Lopes says has $6.4 billion in belongings underneath administration.
Nevertheless, OpenBB is now seeking to entice the varieties of consumers that may in any other case be tempted to take a look at Bloomberg Terminal or merchandise from upstarts like AI market intelligence startup AlphaSense, which raised at a $4 billion valuation in June 2024.
Terminal velocity
The all-new OpenBB Terminal — to not be confused with the earlier CLI-based OpenBB Terminal that the startup sunsetted in March — is a fully-fledged internet app, although it strips out most of the premium options of Terminal Professional. It’s totally customizable, can run on any working system or platform, and offers entry to an AI-enabled OpenBB copilot. Just like the earlier OpenBB Terminal, the all-new internet app can be free to make use of.
OpenBB Terminal is maybe one thing of a middle-ground between the CLI-centricity of the open supply mission and the bells-and-whistles characteristic set of the enterprise product.
“There was an enormous disconnect between the open-source group that we constructed and the enterprise providing, as a result of the enterprise product wasn’t accessible to everybody,” Lopes advised TechCrunch in an interview.
The OpenBB Terminal serves as a single end-point for accessing monetary info from some 100 information sources, spanning fairness, choices, foreign exchange, the macro economic system and extra. Customers can even throw all their new information into the combo — the group has beforehand contributed monetary datasets reminiscent of historic forex alternate charges and crypto pricing information. There are additionally a slew of extensions and toolkits to carry extra performance to OpenBB — reminiscent of an AI inventory evaluation agent.
Customers are free to include their very own AI methods and huge language fashions (LLMs), which could be notably vital for safety and compliance use-cases. However with the OpenBB Copilot, categorized as a “compound AI system,” customers can run natural-language queries about their information out of the field.
Lopes highlighted one notably quirky use-case to show why a extra versatile monetary analysis platform could be fascinating to some corporations.
The case in query involved a transport firm utilizing OpenBB to attach their e mail accounts with a personalized AI copilot to ask questions reminiscent of, “What vessels are presently close to Rio de Janeiro?” or “What vessels are heading towards South Africa?”
However they’re additionally taking a look at methods to combine different information, to assist inform choices round costs.
“They’re utilizing AI to undergo all of their emails — and that’s a whole lot of unstructured information that’s arduous to parse,” Lopes stated. “However their final aim is to have the ability to ask questions primarily based on their emails, but in addition on structured information reminiscent of oil costs, so their copilot would possibly be capable to recommend the most effective pricing primarily based on all of that information.”
As with many community-driven merchandise, OpenBB is mainly utilizing OpenBB Terminal to focus on people who could — in the long term — assist drive signups for the premium enterprise incarnation.
“In case you see corporations like AlphaSense [and others], they’ve actually massive gross sales departments, it’s all very ‘outbound’,” Lopes stated. “We need to go a totally completely different manner, the place we leverage product-led development. We need to have analysts, researchers, funds, and so forth utilizing our product without spending a dime, and bringing different individuals from their staff onto it.”
OpenBB claims a distributed workforce of 15 staff in the present day, with Lopes eager to herald a couple of extra leaders — and he stated he has put some affords in to some with expertise at among the greatest corporations within the monetary analysis area.
“This hiring will in all probability eat extra into our runway, so we’re probably going to boost [more funding] within the close to future,” Lopes stated.
The ‘Bloomberg’ issue
OpenBB has been in comparison with Bloomberg Terminal since its inception, and it’s straightforward to imagine that the “BB” in its identify is a nod to its big-name rival. However Lopes says it’s not.
For context, Lopes stated that each he and his co-founder James Maslek had misplaced cash betting on corporations through the mid-pandemic meme inventory craze, which noticed inventory from publicly-traded corporations reminiscent of Gamestop and BlackBerry rise and fall dramatically as a result of social media-driven hype. And so Lopes launched GameStonk Terminal in early 2021 to mixture monetary information on publicly traded corporations and rivals; SEC filings; earnings reviews; and even market sentiment, conveyed by means of social networks reminiscent of Reddit and Twitter.
A characteristic article in Vice journal on the time referred to GameStonk Terminal as a “DIY meme inventory model of Bloomberg Terminal.”
Whereas Bloomberg Terminal is indispensable for a lot of, and has develop into one thing of a monetary business normal, it prices within the area of $25,000 per consumer yearly. GameStonk Terminal was free, and the preliminary traction satisfied Lopes to give up his engineering job and concentrate on GameStonk full-time. This concerned rebranding as OpenBB in early 2022, “to point out that we have been severe concerning the firm,” as Lopes wrote on the time, elevating $8.5 million in seed funding.
“Once we raised our seed spherical as an open supply platform — with a command line interface providing monetary information integration — it was straightforward for folk to characterize us as an ‘open supply Bloomberg’,” Lopes stated. “However the ‘BB’ in our identify got here from the BlackBerry ticker, the place each my co-founder and I have been shedding cash within the inventory market.”
Whereas the comparisons are comprehensible, OpenBB isn’t precisely a drop-in alternative for Bloomberg Terminal, just because the startup can’t compete with the size and magnitude of the extra established product.
“In case you’re seeking to us as a alternative for Bloomberg Terminal, that doesn’t actually work as a result of they’ve a lot information,” Lopes stated. “There’s no different firm on the planet that has as a lot information as Bloomberg.”
Furthermore, Bloomberg Terminal packs built-in chat performance that enables customers to speak with one another in real-time, bolstering its “flywheel” impact very similar to a conventional social community. That is one thing that OpenBB may replicate, and it has been designed in such a manner that will make it straightforward sufficient for the corporate to embrace messaging sooner or later, with every consumer on its OpenBB Hub already having their very own distinctive profile and username.
“If we determined to have chat, we will faucet into these profiles and usernames, and it wouldn’t be an enormous stretch from there,” Lopes stated. “Nevertheless it’s not but on the roadmap.”
On the flip aspect, OpenBB provides customers the pliability to construct out their very own front-end interface, add options and extensions on prime of the open supply product, and customise ’til the cows come house.
Whereas this highlights how the 2 merchandise in the end serve completely different functions, even when they do overlap, there may nonetheless be authorized headwinds forward for OpenBB.
Some 18 months after rebranding, OpenBB filed to trademark its identify final yr, with the USA Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO) lately publishing the applying to kickstart a 30-day interval the place the general public can increase objections to the trademark being granted. With the deadline approaching, USPTO obtained a request for a 90-day extension, which it granted — however what was most attention-grabbing was that the request was submitted by Bloomberg.
Lopes stated that he’s not heard something from Bloomberg instantly concerning the potential trademark tiff, including that he’s not apprehensive on condition that the “BB” in his firm identify isn’t a reference to Bloomberg.
“If we have been utilizing ‘BBG,’ which is what individuals usually use as an abbreviation for Bloomberg, we’d perceive,” Lopes stated. “However ‘BB’ is an enormous stretch.”
So, if it’s not attempting to be an ‘open supply different to Bloomberg’, what IS it attempting to be?
“Our top-line aim is to be the most effective AI-powered analysis and analytics workspace, constructing as a lot open supply as potential,” Lopes stated.