Learning More About My Industry

Truvalue Labs, the company I've been working at for 3.5 years, has been included in the CB Insights Top 250 Fintech Companies in the category Capital Markets & Institutional Trading.

I wanted to understand what the other companies in this category actually do because I only recognized two of them, and I only know what one of them does. :P

First I'll start with the one I know.

iex is the exchange featured in Flash Boys, which seeks to provide a totally fair and transparent marketplace for all traders. In particular, fairness where traders can't pay for faster access to market activities to get an informational advantage and beat other traders to trades that they wouldn't have done otherwise.
https://iextrading.com/

I've heard of Dataminr before, but actually I have no idea what they do. Sounds like they are in the same space as us for sure, but they sell more to corporate and newsmedia companies in addition to finance. So they detect and classify breaking information before it's in the news using AI and machine learning. They already have other 400 employees and are valuated at $1.6 billion. Looks like this is the only company on this list that is remotely related to what TVL does.
https://www.dataminr.com/


Kantox offers tools for international companies that need to exchange currencies.
https://www.kantox.com/en/faq/

TradeIX is blockchain for trade finance. Haha blockchain. They describe it as a "network of networks for global trade finance. It is supposed to make trading more transparent, faster, and more efficient.
https://tradeix.com/about/


Elefant is a digital broker-dealer for OTC markets (over the counter). So basically it sounds like they use machine learning to determine how to price the buy and sell orders that traders post, and decide if they want to take the other side of the trade. They do not have much information on their site. They are a registered B Corp, though, which is interesting.
http://www.elefant.ai/markets/

Ok that's all very interesting, but I'm losing steam. Let's just get through the rest.

Q4 provides cloud-based investor relations and capital markets access for corporate customers.

SFOX is a crypto-currency prime dealer.

Trumid provides info to credit traders.
https://www.trumid.com/

CloudMargin is a web-based collateral management system.
https://cloudmargin.com/

Capitolis addresses capital markets constraints in equities and foreign exchange (FX). I don't really understand exactly what this means. Sounds like it involves automating processes for various FX market participants. FX instruments include options, swaps, and forwards.
https://www.capitolis.com/
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180523005079/en/Capitolis-Launches-Groundbreaking-Novation-Service-Foreign-Exchange

Symphony is a team collaboration platform.
https://symphony.com/en-US

NYSHEX is digital contracting for ocean shipping.
https://www.nyshex.com/en/

Axoni is blockchain for derivatives and foreign exchange.
https://axoni.com/press/axoni-announces-32-million-series-b-funding-led-by-goldman-sachs-and-nyca-partners/

Cloud9 is an American esports company, which means they run online gaming leagues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud9

10x seeks to provide more equitable banking services. They have a special focus on diversity and reaching underserved communities.
https://www.10xbanking.com/