Gridstone Research

About Gridstone Research

Gridstone Research, legally known as Perputo, Inc., was a financial technology and data services firm established in 2005. The company was co-founded by a team of former Infosys professionals, including Basab Pradhan, who served as the initial CEO, P R Ganapathy, Ramesh Gopalan, Nitin Gupta, and Sandeep Shroff. Operating with a presence in San Mateo, New York, San Francisco, and Mumbai, the firm catered to the investment management industry.

The core of Gridstone's business was a research platform specifically designed for financial analysts. This platform utilized search and semantic technologies to extract, transform, and present fundamental financial and operational data of public companies. The primary objective was to provide a more efficient tool for analysts to manage information overload. In addition to its main platform, the company offered value-added services such as custom data extraction and earnings modeling. Its business model was centered on selling access to this platform to buy-side investment managers, counting firms like Alliance Bernstein, Oppenheimer Funds, and Nomura Asset Management among its clients.

Gridstone Research successfully raised a total of $10 million in capital over four funding rounds. Its first seed round occurred in September 2005, followed by Series A rounds in 2006. A significant Series B funding round of $10 million was closed on April 10, 2008, led by Helion Venture Partners with participation from existing investors Charles River Ventures and Maverick Capital. However, the company was heavily impacted by the global financial crisis, which led to severe budget cuts within its target market. After Basab Pradhan stepped down as CEO in March 2009, co-founder P R Ganapathy took over the role. Ultimately, Gridstone Research ceased all business operations on April 15, 2010, and its assets were sold to two US-based financial services companies.