Sparta raises USD17.5 million to improve market intelligence for commodity training

Sparta is a live market intelligence and forecasting platform that gives traders, refiners, banks, hedge funds and wholesalers access to live leading indicators that have a direct impact on trading decisions. While most data platforms in the space focus on past trends and data, Sparta is unique in the market as the only platform that concentrates exclusively on delivering prices and opportunities that can still be traded and captured.

Sparta was founded in 2020 by two former traders, Miles Moseley and Felipe Elink Schuurman, to answer a common problem shared by most traders: 90% of pricing data required to make trading decisions is kept in silos and shared manually by voice, email, or chat. This information is then manually processed into trading insights through Excel spreadsheets and there is a lack of centralised databases to allow analysis of historical price movements and trends. Consequently, traders do not have all of the information that they need, when they need it, to make fully informed decisions in a fast-moving market. Sparta’s technology provides market intelligence, pricing and forecasting data in real-time. The company already works with clients globally, including Philips 66, Chevron, Trafigura, Equinor and more.

The investment will allow the Geneva-based company to expand its offering beyond the platform, with plans ranging from developing premium insight, expanding to new commodity verticals, implementing full customisation processes, optimising workflow processes and developing AI tools with the aim to provide forward-looking actionable insights and predictions.

The raise will also support globalisation plans. Currently located in Geneva, London, Houston, Singapore and Madrid, Sparta plans to expand within these existing territories, as well as establishing a foothold in new regions.

Felipe Elink Schuurman, CEO at Sparta, said: “We’re delighted to have gained the support the team at FirstMark, and the continued support of Singular, to help us execute on the next phase of our vision – to revolutionise the way traders gather, process, analyse, and interpret data to inform strategic decision-making in real time and help organizations anticipate future developments and capture more opportunities. Ultimately this will enable the industry to generate higher margins. ”

The USD17.5 million Series A funding round was led by technology venture capital firm FirstMark, alongside existing shareholder Singular. Matt Turck, Partner at FirstMark, added “Despite only being a three-year-old company, Sparta has been ushering a new era in the commodities trading industry, providing not just real-time data but also predictive analytics, increasingly powered by data science, ML and AI. Sparta has assembled a great team of both industry veterans and technologists, and it’s been experiencing impressive commercial traction with customers around the world. We’re thrilled to partner with the company and its team.”

(Press release / SK)