SPH invests S$2m in data analysis firm for 20% stake

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

CALL them cartographers for capital markets. From forgotten initial public offering (IPO) prospectuses to daily announcements,
Handshakes draws relationship maps to reveal all past and present associations that any person has had with others all
in
one browser window.
The data analysis app is owned and operated by DC Frontiers a
tech company which has just brought on its first institutional
investor, thanks to a S$2 million cash injection by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) in return for a 20 per cent stake in the firm.
The brainchild of two former Singapore Exchange (SGX) regulators, Charles Poon and Daryl Neo, Handshakes brings a whole
new level of transparency to capital markets.
Where one used to have to trawl through hundreds of disclosure documents just to find out how one person is related to
another a
timeconsuming,
lowproductivity
task with great opportunity costs Handshakes
automates the process and
delivers the information instantly.
It does so first by integrating public information from listed companies' disclosures some
of which go back as far as 1997 and
then by splicing and analysing the data to show a galaxy of interconnections.
Said Mr Neo, 30: "I think the key problem is that in a disclosurebased
regime, once a piece of information is disclosed, then it's
deemed that the public knows (about it). And if that piece of information was disclosed a long time ago, or you happened not to
read it, or you've forgotten this information then
too bad for you."
That galvanised both Mr Neo and Mr Poon, 39, to build their own knowledgemanagement
system "to solve (their) own pain"
when trying to enforce compliance with the listing rules by publicly traded companies.
Both eventually left SGX to work fulltime
on Handshakes an
app that has since grown to cover not only Singapore, but
Malaysia and Hong Kong as well. Handshakes' users include issue managers, corporate lawyers, private investigators and
even regulatory and enforcement agencies anybody
with a need to suss out a person or entity, perhaps for due diligence
purposes.
Customers can opt for a subscription or the payperuse
model, with the former priced at S$1,200 per month for one account.
This fee is expected to increase as Handshakes adds more countries to its list. Handshakes also offers consulting and research
services; fees for these vary based on each customer's needs.
The cofounders
estimate that there are "a few hundred" accounts making use of Handshakes's platform.
While neither Mr Poon nor Mr Neo were willing to disclose how much revenue Handshakes brings in, the SPH deal values DC
Frontiers at S$10 million. The firm has under 50 staff, with a team representing 11 nationalities.
Said SPH chief financial officer Anthony Mallek: "SPH is pleased to partner Handshakes, which is an innovative young
company that is serving a real need in the business community. We look forward to unlocking the synergies between the
companies. We also like their ambition to grow and expand their services in the region."
Indeed, Mr Poon said that the S$2 million cash injection will help the company expand its coverage to the rest of Asia. He also
foresees data being mined from alternative sources, such as news archives, in the future.
Handshakes has no competitors as yet, and the cofounders
are not too worried about a copycat.
Said Mr Neo: "To be frank,
the idea is nothing special . . . The unique thing is the curation the
knowhow,
the skills and techniques, all the solutions that
we've created internally that's
the part that is hard to replicate."
Added Mr Poon: "I think being exregulators
also helped us when we first started. Being a market regulator, we'd already seen a
breadth of companies and scenarios. So we already saw where we should stretch the data and analysis that
already gives us
a legup
over anyone trying to enter the market."


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