Latest news with #MichaelRafferty
Business Wire
02-06-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
AgentSmyth Raises $8.7M Seed Round From FinTech Collective, Thomson Reuters and Others to Scale Autonomous Agent Platform for Trading and Investment
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AgentSmyth, the autonomous agent platform for trading and investment delivering real-time, institutional-grade intelligence to professional traders, has closed an $8.7 million Seed round, co-led by FinTech Collective and Thomson Reuters, with BNY joining through its Ascent fintech-innovation program. The new capital brings the company's total funding to $11.2 million, including a $2.5 million pre-seed led by Michael Rafferty, president and CEO of Rafferty Holdings, who also participated in the current round. In less than 12 months, AgentSmyth has been deployed by 48 institutional customers including banks, hedge funds, and asset-management firms with client assets of $2 billion - $50 billion. AgentSmyth leverages AI-generated equities market intelligence, research and insights – all delivered by a team of five autonomous agents capturing real-time macro data, investor sentiment, quantitative analysis, options activity, and corporate earnings. AgentSmyth's speed, accuracy and insights are particularly valuable in today's diverse and volatile markets, making this technology one of the most powerful tools available to institutional investors. 'We're thrilled to have a syndicate of investors who don't just share our vision—they're betting on it,' said Pulkit Jaiswal, co-founder and CEO of AgentSmyth. 'Investment research is becoming a commodity; the real edge is turning that raw insight into basis-point-generating trades. Competitors might find the paragraph—AgentSmyth tells you how to trade it. The platform has already been rolled out on the trading floors of some of Wall Street's largest institutions. This round lets us accelerate adoption and ship the next wave of fully autonomous, trade-ready agents.' 'The first time Pulkit walked us through their agent stack, it was obvious this was more than another AI plugin—it's the missing link between market data and trade execution,' said Brooks Gibbins, co-founder of FinTech Collective. 'We've backed fintech founders around the world since 2012, and AgentSmyth stands out for pairing deep capital-markets DNA with production-ready AI. It's already changing how desks make money, and we're thrilled to help scale that impact.' 'Thomson Reuters Ventures invests in innovative companies that align with our strategic objectives and the markets we serve. In the financial services sector, AI is rapidly transforming institutional investment analysis. The use of AI to generate trade ideas, stay up to date with company coverage, and analyze investment data is no longer optional. AgentSmyth has developed a transformational agentic AI platform that incorporates over 100 data sets streaming in real-time and performs institutional-grade investment analysis using a variety of different investment disciplines,' said Tamara Steffens, Managing Director, Thomson Reuters Ventures. 'We are thrilled to be partnering with this highly talented and experienced team.' In addition to the Seed financing, AgentSmyth has joined BNY's Ascent Program, which was established to facilitate innovation and collaboration with the fintech ecosystem and its emerging leaders. Through the program, AgentSmyth will collaborate with BNY on refining the autonomous-agent platform and its adoption across institutional desks. Other investors include Binnacle Financial Group; Systemic Ventures; Scott Friedman, former President, Chief Compliance Officer and founding team member at Robinhood; Jason Halbert, a doctoral-level behavioral scientist and former U.S. Army special-operations officer who helped scale Snapchat from 40 employees to 10,000 and through its IPO; and Will Mayer and Alyssa Bonanno of Better Half, who also serve as AgentSmyth's brand partners, bringing experience from category-defining brands such as Bilt Rewards and Equinox. About AgentSmyth AgentSmyth is an autonomous agent platform for trading and investment that rapidly produces the most current institutional-grade intelligence essential to professional traders. The company is headquartered in New York City. For more information, visit AgentSmyth is a registered investment advisory (See: FINRA registered.
BBC News
04-04-2025
- General
- BBC News
Rathlin Island: Conservationists confident over ferret removal
Conservationists working to protect Rathlin Island's at-risk seabirds believe they have rid the island of its invasive ferret in 2021, the five-year £4.5m the LIFE Raft project has been working to eradicate rats and ferrets from the island off the north Antrim the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), who run the project, have told local councillors they are "optimistic" the ferret population on Rathlin has been eradicated."To date, there has been 98 ferrets caught, and from November 2023 there have been no confirmed ferret sightings," the project's fieldwork manager Michael Rafferty told Causeway Coast and Glens council earlier this week. Rathlin Island is only six miles wide and one mile long, with a population of about 150 is internationally renowned as home to puffins and other seabirds including razorbills, kittiwakes, Manx shearwaters, guillemots and bird numbers had been in decline over recent years, sparking fears among conservationists. Both ferrets and rats prey on the eggs and young of the vulnerable bird species which use the island's cliffs for breeding. Mr Rafferty told councillors ferrets were possibly introduced in the 1980s to control rabbit numbers, and since then had done "tremendous damage to ground-nesting birds"."In just a few days one adult ferret managed to kill 27 adult birds, just by gaining access to a puffin colony," he team behind the LIFE Raft project have deployed traps and a detection dog in efforts to control ferret numbers. Mr Rafferty said, in terms of tackling ferret numbers, it had gone well and "we are quite optimistic that things are looking good, although it's not confirmed that the ferret is eradicated yet".Efforts to tackle the brown rat population were started in September last year, he added, and that is "ongoing".The £4.5m LIFE Raft project is funded by EU LIFE, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Garfield Weston Foundation and DAERA.
