Databento raises $97M to challenge Bloomberg and LSEG, with a 24-person team

Photo: Markus Winkler / Unsplash

We covered a similar shift on the data-provider side a few days ago with Eulerpool's Anthropic partnership. Databento's news this week is a different flavor of the same broader trend: challenger data infrastructure raising real money to go after the incumbents.

The round

Databento closed a $97 million Series B on July 9, led by NEA with participation from DRW Venture Capital, Redpoint and Tribe Capital. The pitch: pay-per-use pricing instead of the flat-fee licensing model Bloomberg and LSEG built their businesses on, direct feeds from more than 80 venues, and a customer list that includes Nvidia and OpenAI. It's profitable, and it got there with a team of just 24 people.

Why it's notable

This isn't an AI-agent story the way Eulerpool's was, it's a straightforward funding round. But it's a useful data point for anyone who cares about where their market data actually comes from: a well-capitalized, pay-per-use challenger is a different kind of pressure on the Bloomberg/LSEG duopoly than another AI feature launch. Databento also recently became an authorized distributor of ICE Data, adding ICE Futures Europe and Endex datasets, one more sign of the consolidation and distribution-partnership pattern showing up across data vendors this year.

Why this matters if you use Cresori

Every tool that depends on market data, Cresori included, is downstream of decisions made by vendors like this one. A well-funded, credible challenger to Bloomberg and LSEG means more competitive pricing and coverage over time across the whole space. Worth keeping an eye on where the money is moving here, it tends to show up in data quality and pricing a year or two later.

Sources: Fortune, July 9, A-Team Insight.