US-based data provider TruValue Labs completed a $13.6m round on Monday that included Hearst Financial Venture Fund, a joint venture between media group Hearst and financial data supplier Fitch Group.
The series A round was led by venture capital fund Katalyst Ventures and also featured VC fund The Entrepreneurs’ Fund, wealth management firm Sun Hung Kai Strategic Capital and angel investors William Campbell and Tom Chavez.
TruValue has built an artificial intelligence-based software platform that generates environmental, social and governance (ESG) data in order to help investors more effectively assess and balance the risks in individual deals.
Shea Wallon, managing director of Hearst Financial Venture Fund, said: “Environmental, social and governance factors are being considered more and more each day by asset managers as they make decisions on how to construct and manage their portfolios.
“TruValue Labs’ real-time, ESG data and scoring provide portfolio managers with insights they can’t currently access today.”
The series A funds will be put toward product development, as the company looks to enhance the predictive capabilities of the platform, known as Insight360, and to strengthen the risk-assessment abilities of another platform, InsightEngine.
Hearst Financial Venture Fund was established in August 2016 to invest in financial technology developers and build a network of portfolio companies with the potential to help each other grow. That portfolio also includes PeerIQ, which supplied data and analytics to consumer lenders.