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Fledgling fintech startupOpenBBis revealing the next step in its architectural plan to take on the heavyweights of the investment inquiry world . The company is launch a new , free version of a product that will open its arsenal of datum and financial tooling to more users .
OpenBB is the handwork of software engineerDidier Lopes , who launch the Python - based platform back in 2021 as a way for unpaid investor and enthusiasts to do investment funds inquiry using different datasets for innocent , via a command line interface ( CLI ) . The company went on toraise $ 8.5 millionin seed funding fromOSS Capitaland angel investors such asRam Shriram , an other backer of Google .
While the community - base , heart-to-heart generator projection has amassed some50,000 exploiter , OpenBB has also been build an enterprise incarnation calledTerminal Pro . This paid version gives teams access to an interface , pre - built database integrations , anExcel attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - in , and various security and documentation deadbolt - ons that would appeal to bombastic businesses .
OpenBB claims some big - name client that include shipping and logistics companyPangaea Logistics Solutionsand an unnamed investment business firm , which Lopes say has $ 6.4 billion in assets under direction .
However , OpenBB is now take care to attract the kinds of customer that might otherwise be tempt to check out Bloomberg Terminal or products from upstarts likeAI market intelligence startup AlphaSense , which raised at a $ 4 billion evaluation inJune 2024 .
Terminal velocity
The all - newOpenBB Terminal — not to be confused with the previous CLI - based OpenBB Terminal that the startupsunsetted in March — is a full - fledged entanglement app , though it undress out many of the premium feature of Terminal Pro . It ’s fully customizable , can turn tail on any operating system or chopine , and provides access to an AI - enabledOpenBB co-pilot . Like the premature OpenBB Terminal , the all - new web app is also gratis to expend .
OpenBB Terminal is perhaps something of a middle priming coat between the CLI centricity of the exposed source project and the bell - and - whistling sport set of the enterprise product .
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“ There was a large gulf between the open source community that we built and the endeavour offering , because the endeavor product was n’t approachable to everyone , ” Lopes tell TechCrunch in an interview .
The OpenBB Terminal serves as a individual close point for accessing financial entropy from some 100 data point sources , sweep equity , options , forex , the macro economy , and more . exploiter can also bedevil all their new data into the mix — the community has previously contributedfinancial datasetssuch ashistorical currency interchange ratesandcrypto pricing data . There are also a slew of extensions and toolkits to bring more functionality to OpenBB — such asan AI stock depth psychology broker .
exploiter are devoid to contain their own AI systems and large speech model ( LLMs ) , which might be particularly important for security system and compliance use case . But with the OpenBB Copilot , categorize as a “ compound AI system , ” users can carry natural - spoken communication queries about their data out of the boxful .
Lopes highlighted one particularly quirky use case to exhibit why a more flexible fiscal inquiry political platform might be suitable to some company .
The case in question concerned a merchant marine caller using OpenBB to connect their electronic mail accounts with a customized AI co-pilot to ask query such as , “ What vessels are currently near Rio de Janeiro ? ” or “ What vessel are head toward South Africa ? ”
But they are also looking at ways to integrate other data , to help inform decisions around price .
“ They are using AI to go through all of their emails — and that ’s a flock of amorphous data that ’s operose to parse , ” Lopes say . “ But their ultimate finish is to be able-bodied to ask interrogation based on their e-mail , but also on structured data such as crude prices , so their copilot might be able-bodied to suggest the best pricing based on all of that data . ”
As with many community - driven production , OpenBB is fundamentally using OpenBB Terminal to direct individuals who may — in the long ladder — help drive signups for the premium enterprise avatar .
“ If you see companies like AlphaSense [ and others ] , they have really large sales event section , it ’s all very ‘ outbound ’ , ” Lopes said . “ We desire to go a altogether unlike way , where we leverage product - led growth . We want to have analyst , researchers , monetary fund , and so on using our product for free , and bringing other people from their team onto it . ”
OpenBB claim a distributed work force of 15 employee today , with Lopes keen to bring in in a few more loss leader — and he say he has put some offer in to some with experience at some of the biggest companies in the fiscal enquiry quad .
“ This hiring will probably eat more into our runway , so we are likely going to set up [ more funding ] in the near future , ” canter said .
The ‘Bloomberg’ factor
OpenBB has been equate to Bloomberg Terminal since its inception , and it ’s easy to take that the “ BB ” in its name is a nod to its big - name rival . But Lopes says it ’s not .
For context , Lopes say that both he and his carbon monoxide - founderJames Maslekhad lose money betting on ship’s company during the mid - pandemicmeme stock delirium , which sawstock from in public traded companiessuch as GameStop and BlackBerry rise and fall dramatically due to societal metier - driven hype . And so Lopeslaunched Gamestonk Terminalin other 2021 to aggregate fiscal data on publicly traded company and competitors ; SEC filings ; earnings reports ; and even market sentiment , conveyed through social networks such as Reddit and Twitter .
Afeature article in Vice magazineat the metre name to Gamestonk Terminal as a “ DIY meme stock version of Bloomberg Terminal . ”
WhileBloomberg Terminalis indispensable for many , and has become something of a financial industry standard , it costs in the region of $ 25,000 per exploiter annually . Gamestonk Terminal was free , and the initial traction convinced Lopes to stop his engineering job and focalise on Gamestonk full - metre . This involvedrebranding as OpenBBin early 2022 “ to show that we were serious about the fellowship , ” lope wrote at the time , raising $ 8.5 million in seed financial support .
“ When we raised our come round as an open source platform — with a command line of reasoning interface offer financial data integration — it was leisurely for folks to characterize us as an ‘ subject source Bloomberg , ’ ” Lopes said . “ But the ‘ BB shot ’ in our name come from the BlackBerry stock ticker , where both my atomic number 27 - father and I were losing money in the pedigree market . ”
While the comparisons are understandable , OpenBB is n’t exactly a drop - in successor for Bloomberg Terminal , but because the startup can not contend with the scale and order of magnitude of the more established intersection .
“ If you ’re looking to us as a transposition for Bloomberg Terminal , that does n’t really work because they have so much datum , ” Lopes said . “ There ’s no other troupe in the world that has as much data as Bloomberg . ”
Moreover , Bloomberg Terminal packsbuilt - in Old World chat functionalitythat allows user to convey with each other in real meter , pad its “ flywheel ” effect much like a traditional societal web . This is something that OpenBB could retroflex , and it has been designed in such a way that would make it easy enough for the company to adopt messaging in the time to come , with each user on its OpenBB Hub already take their own unique visibility and username .
“ If we decide to have chat , we can pink into those profiles and usernames , and it would n’t be a swelled stretch from there , ” trot say . “ But it ’s not yet on the roadmap . ”
On the flip side , OpenBB yield users the flexibleness to ramp up out their own front - end interface , add features and extensions on top of the open source intersection , and customize ’ til the cows come home .
While this highlights how the two products ultimately serve unlike purposes , even if they do overlap , there could still be effectual headwinds ahead for OpenBB .
Some 18 months after rebranding , OpenBBfiled to trademarkits name last yr , with the United States Patent and Trademark Office ( USPTO ) recently publishing the software to kickstart a 30 - solar day stop where the public can nurture objections to the trademark being granted . With the deadline approaching , USPTO meet a request for a 90 - day extension , which it cede — but what was most interesting was that the postulation was put forward by Bloomberg .
Lopes said that he ’s not heard anything from Bloomberg immediately about the potential trademark tiff , adding that he ’s not apprehensive give that the “ BB ” in his troupe name is n’t a quotation to Bloomberg .
“ If we were using ‘ BBG , ’ which is what people normally use as an abbreviation for Bloomberg , we ’d understand , ” Lopes said . “ But ‘ BB shot ’ is a big reaching . ”
So , if it ’s not attempt to be an ‘ open reference option to Bloomberg , ’ whatisit essay to be ?
“ Our top - line goal is to be the good artificial insemination - powered research and analytics workspace , building as much undefended source as possible , ” Lopes allege .
