New York-based Rogo has raised $7 million in seed funding to advance a specialized generative artificial intelligence tool that can provide Wall Street investors with lightning-quick research and analysis. The round was led by AlleyCorp, with participation from Company Ventures and BoxGroup (all of New York) and Santa Barbara, Cali-based ScOp Ventures.
Co-founder and CEO Gabe Stengel has so far raised $10.5 million from investors after starting Rogo with technology developed at Princeton University, where he earned a degree in computer science. Rogo was on the university’s honors list and also won the Sigma Xi book award for outstanding undergraduate research.
‘AI Consigliere’
In a LinkedIn post, Stengel announced the funding and said the company was working on “extremely exciting technology at the intersection of generative AI and finance,” and “hiring fast.”
Stengel was an investment banker at Lazard and an engineer at MongoDB before joining with John Willett and Tumas Rackaitis — financial executives at JPMorgan and Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co. respectively— in starting Rogo. Willett, also a Princeton grad, has also worked at Barclays. Rackaitis, who serves as Rogo’s chief technology officer, has a computer science degree from Oberlin College.
In an interview with Business Insider, Stengel said he thinks of Rogo’s flagship product as an AI “consigliere” or adviser. Rogo says it meets the highest industry security standards, with strict access controls and strong encryption. All data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2) and at rest using AES-256 encryption algorithm.
Besides focusing its AI tool on financial services sector, Rogo differentiates itself by offering “bespoke generative AI.” This means each company could innovatively use the technology for its own goals and to address specific pain points, rather than depend on a broad-brush tool. Presumably, the tool would be trained using an individual firm’s data, and those available in public domain.
Commercial Real Estate
MacKenzie Companies
Advertising / Media / Communications / Public Relations
Nevins & Associates
Financial Services / Investment Firms
Chesapeake Corporate Advisors
Commercial Real Estate
Monday Properties
Venture Capital
Blue Delta Capital Partners
Internet / Technology
Foxtrot Media
Transformative Potential
“Generative AI is catalyzing a transformation in our daily lives — nowhere will this be more apparent than in financial services,” Rogo says on its website. “Our team is comprised of ex-hedge fund analysts, ex-bankers, and ex-private equity investors, and we’ve built Rogo to give others the AI powers we wish we had.”
Rogo’s platform has been deployed commercially since last September, and the company has earned over $1 million in revenue. Its users have not been named but include asset managers, hedge funds, investment banks and private equity firms.
Stengel said Rogo would use the recently raised funds to expand its team — from the present 16 — to over 50 by the end of 2024.
