String Ventures

We deploy our global network for business development, strategic alliances and funding

Kraken acquires Crypto Facilities

Kraken closed its biggest acquisition to date on our portfolio company Crypto Facilities

Crypto Facilities is an exchange and index provider regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the U K Crypto Facilities lets you trade futures on multiple cryptocurrency pairs It was the first ever crypto exchange regulated by a FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) and it was the official index provider to the CME Group, World’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace

Kraken currently has 4 million users who traded the equivalent of $90 billion in 2018 Following this acquisition, Kraken users will now have access to both spot and futures trading

ServiceNow acquired our portfolio company FriendlyData

FriendlyData is a natural language search interface for Enterprise Data, powered by Machine Learning and NLP, got acquired by ServiceNow ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW), Forbes’ No 1 World’s Most Innovative Company, has decided to acquire FriendlyData, which makes it easy for non-technical users to ask quantitative questions in plain English and get fast results through direct answers or data visualizations

For ServiceNow, FriendlyData’s natural language query (NLQ) technology will help reduce the amount of time spent figuring out how to ask questions technically NLQ allows users to just ask a question and then act When used within ServiceNow, the technology will reduce some of the complexity that slows down work, including: • Outdated customer and employee work experiences that are not intuitive and easy to use like the ones people experience as consumers • Inability to act due to reliance on time-consuming manual processes • Burdens on business analysts and data engineers who can’t keep pace with the increasing volume of requests coming from non-technical users within their company

“ServiceNow is bringing NLQ capabilities to the Now Platform, enabling companies to ask technical questions in plain English and receive direct answers,” said Pat Casey, senior vice president, development and operations at ServiceNow “With this technical enhancement, our goal is to allow anyone to easily make data-driven decisions, increasing productivity and driving businesses forward faster ” ServiceNow plans to re-platform FriendlyData’s NLQ technology, extending the Now Platform’s intelligence capabilities by making NLQ interfaces available across ServiceNow applications for IT, Human Resources, Security Operations, Customer Service Management, partner products and for developers