NBCUniversal News Group Makes Strategic Investment in Kensho, The Groundbreaking Investment Analytics Platform

NEW YORK and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The NBCUniversal News Group today announced a strategic investment in Kensho. In conjunction, CNBC, first in business worldwide, and Kensho have formed a multi-faceted content and product agreement.

Kensho is a next-generation analytics platform for investment professionals that instantly and clearly answers millions of permutations of complex financial questions, automating previously human-intensive knowledge work by harnessing massively-parallel statistical computing, user-friendly visual interfaces and breakthroughs in unstructured data engineering.

"Across our news brands we are innovating from within, while externally investing in strategic partnerships with forward-thinking companies like Kensho – all with the goal of giving consumers engaging content in the way they now expect it," said Pat Fili-Krushel, Chairman, NBCUniversal News Group. "This strategic collaboration with Kensho gives us a powerful new tool to help deliver unique analysis to our viewers and users with remarkable speed and insight."

"Since the stock ticker was first televised in the 1990s, CNBC has always been advancing the movement toward more transparent markets," said Daniel Nadler, CEO of Kensho. "Kensho and our accomplished team of software engineers and data scientists have developed groundbreaking technologies for global financial institutions. We are proud to partner with CNBC to showcase Kensho's powerful capabilities globally and to familiarize all investors on a daily basis with the power of using statistics to gain context and make better, faster, more-informed decisions."

Beginning on Thursday, November 20, CNBC will debut Kensho Stats Box, which will enable CNBC journalists to use Kensho technology to surface research and analytic insights designed to create actionable, historical context around market moving events for its audience across platforms. Previously, this type of real-time, in-depth analysis required large teams of highly-trained professionals performing time-intensive knowledge work.  

In addition, CNBC will provide Kensho with timely and relevant content, including its breaking news and market coverage for integration into the Kensho Professional Platform for financial institutions. The two companies have also agreed to work together on creating new digital products that further democratize financial markets, bringing actionable insights and analytics to ordinary investors. The first products will be launched in 2015.

"Daniel Nadler and the entire Kensho team are true innovators and have uniquely made the democratization of market analytics at scale possible," said Kevin Krim, Senior Vice President and General Manager, CNBC Digital. "For over twenty-five years, CNBC has provided actionable news, analysis and information to our audience of investors, business decision makers and affluent consumers. Our transformative collaboration with Kensho enables us to empower our audience to make sense and money from any event, whether expected or unexpected."

The terms of both deals were not disclosed.

About Kensho:
Kensho is empowering the largest financial institutions in the world with technology that brings transparency to markets. Kensho is pioneering real-time statistical computing systems and scalable analytics architectures—the next generation of improvements to the global financial system. Kensho harnesses massively-parallel statistical computing, user-friendly visual interfaces and breakthroughs in unstructured data engineering to create the next-generation analytics platform for investment professionals. Addressing the most significant challenges surrounding investment analysis on Wall Street today—achieving speed, scale, and automation of previously human-intensive knowledge work—Kensho's intelligent computer systems are capable of answering complex financial questions posed in plain English, and in real-time. Kensho was founded out of MIT and Harvard in 2013. Kensho's engineers come from veteran positions at Google, Apple, and Facebook.

Members of the media can receive more information about Kensho at http://www.kensho.com

About NBCUniversal News Group:
The NBCUniversal News Group is one of the most influential and respected portfolios of on-air and digital news properties in the world, reaching over 147 million people each month. The Group includes NBC News, a broadcast leader of global news and information for over 75 years and home to such respected programs as "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams," "Today," "Meet the Press," and "Dateline;" MSNBC, the premiere destination for in-depth analysis of daily headlines, insightful political commentary and informed perspectives reaching more than 96 million households worldwide; CNBC, the recognized world leader in business news reaching more that 370 million homes worldwide as well as The Weather Channel and digital platforms including the NBC News Digital Group, msnbc.com, CNBC.com. The NBCUniversal News Group also extends on its nationwide network of owned and affiliate stations, NBC News and CNBC Radio; as well as MSNBC on Sirius XM radio.

About CNBC:
With CNBC in the U.S., CNBC in Asia Pacific, CNBC in Europe, Middle East and Africa, CNBC World and CNBC HD, CNBC is the recognized world leader in business news and provides real-time financial market coverage and business information to approximately 371 million homes worldwide, including more than 100 million households in the United States and Canada. CNBC also provides daily business updates to 400 million households across China. The network's 15 live hours a day of business programming in North America (weekdays from 4:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. ET) is produced at CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and includes reports from CNBC News bureaus worldwide. CNBC at night features a mix of new reality programming, CNBC's highly successful series produced exclusively for CNBC and a number of distinctive in-house documentaries.

CNBC also has a vast portfolio of digital products which deliver real-time financial market news and information across a variety of platforms. These include CNBC.com, the online destination for global business; CNBC PRO, the premium, integrated desktop/mobile service that provides real-time global market data and live access to CNBC global programming; and a suite of CNBC Mobile products including the CNBC Real-Time iPhone and iPad Apps.

Members of the media can receive more information about CNBC and its programming on the NBC Universal Media Village Web site at http://www.nbcumv.com/programming/cnbc.

Media Contacts:

NBCUniversal News Group:
Mark Kornblau, 212-664-2007, [email protected]

CNBC:
Brian Steel, 201-735-4778, [email protected] 
Amy Zelvin, 201-735-4740, [email protected] 

Kensho:
Adam Broun, [email protected]

SOURCE NBCUniversal News Group; CNBC

Related Links

http://www.cnbc.com