There’s a New Competitor for BlackRock’s Aladdin

Solovis has launched a new risk analytics platform, joining an increasingly crowded field of providers.

Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Solovis has entered the risk analytics market.

The Nasdaq-owned investment software firm on Friday announced the launch of Solovis Risk Analytics, a new tool to help asset allocators analyze and manage portfolio risks.

Solovis said its new platform would cover all asset types, enabling institutional investors to “easily analyze bottom-up multi-factor risk exposures across a diverse portfolio and identify opportunities for risk mitigation.”

Solovis, founded seven years ago by Josh Smith and Caleb Doise, makes portfolio management software for asset owners such as endowments, foundations, pension funds, and family offices. The firm has grown rapidly since its 2013 launch and was acquired by Nasdaq earlier this year.

When the acquisition was announced, Nasdaq said Solovis would be combined with eVestment — another recent Nasdaq acquisition — to “create a global leader of proprietary content, insights, and portfolio analytics.”

With the launch of Solovis Risk Analytics, the fintech firm builds on its existing portfolio analytics, giving users the ability to perform risk analysis such as stress testing how their investments would perform during a sharp market downturn.

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It also joins an ever-widening field of competitors to Aladdin, the famous risk calculator behind BlackRock. Just last year, Two Sigma publicly debuted its data and risk-management tool, Venn. Meanwhile State Street has been building up the risk analytics component of its new investment platform Alpha through partnerships with existing players like MSCI and Axioma.

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Solovis has so far differentiated itself from other investment software providers by catering specifically to asset owners. The new risk analytics tool has likewise been “uniquely designed for asset owner and allocator needs,” according to Friday’s announcement.

“Effectively managing risks across a multi-asset class portfolio is more critical than ever,” Solovis CEO Smith said in a statement. “Solovis Risk Analytics is designed to simplify and streamline complex risk assessments.”

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