THE MAIN EVENT IN ALPHATECH

April 6, 2022

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S3 Partners Announces Addition of Industry Veteran Bill Stephenson

Firm to assume and relaunch AIR Summit

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S3 Partners (S3) today announced that Bill Stephenson will join the firm as a Managing Director. Stephenson will lead transaction cost analysis and best execution initiatives at S3, including the Blacklight Financing OMS, which helps trading professionals find the money in their financing relationships, fix their book, and avoid unhappy brokers. S3's best execution integrations and workflows will further optimize alpha generation for asset managers and the end asset owners.

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In correlation with Stephenson joining the team, S3 will also assume a majority stake in the AIR Summit (AIR), the premier community focused on innovative technologies in the investment management process.  AIR, which Stephenson founded in 2013, hosts its flagship event in New York City, and has held past events in London and Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 

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"S3 has always been an innovative force that brings together technology, data analytics and financial markets, and the addition of Bill and AIR helps further our capabilities for our clients," said Bob Sloan, Managing Partner of S3. "S3 was one of the early presenters at the AIR Summit and an ongoing sponsor of its events and the mission. Our investment in the re-launch of the S3 AIR Summit from its pre-pandemic success will help our customers stay at the forefront of finding new alpha, avoiding risk and fixing costs in their investment processes."

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The AIR Summit was founded in 2013 and spun out of Franklin Templeton Investments in 2017, where Stephenson was the Global Head of Trading. Since the inaugural event, 115 emerging fintech companies have presented at AIR, resulting in over $2.7 billion raised in follow-on capital. AIR 6.0 will be held at the New York Stock Exchange in June 2022.

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"Over my career, I have focused on finding new ways to generate alpha," said Stephenson. "The AIR Summit was one avenue in that discovery process, and the other was through integration and experimentation with emerging technologies and ideas; some failed, and others were wildly successful. I look forward to my new role at S3, which will allow me to both explore the latest technologies for alpha generation and to build upon S3's market-leading data and technology within the quickly evolving securities finance space."

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Before joining S3, Stephenson was the CEO of Plia, where he will continue as Chairman, and spent 20 years at Franklin Templeton Investments. While at Franklin, he ran market data services, the investment quantitative research group, and the global trading operation, which executed equities, foreign exchange, derivatives, and securities lending transactions.

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About S3 Partners:
S3 Partners is a leading technology and financial data analytics company that allows Buy and Sell Side market participants to obtain a clear and accurate picture of capital markets trading activity in real-time. S3 Partners provides the highest quality and most timely data for market Financing Rates (bid/ask/last), Short Interest, Float, Open Interest (Long Positions), and Proprietary Indexes (Squeeze, Crowded, Momentum). S3's most used product, BLACK APP, is the market standard for real-time Short Interest and Securities Finance data for more than 65,000 securities on desktops globally. S3's Financing OMS allows trading professionals to aggregate, optimize and score Position, Holdings, Cash, Margin and Swap Positions and enhances outcomes across the total life cycle of any trade—financing, derivatives and cash. S3 is the market standard source for the financial news media such as Bloomberg, WSJ, CNBC and FT. For more information, visit https://www.s3partners.com/.

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August 20, 2019

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Plato Partnership announced today that it will be extending sponsorship for a further three annual London-based AIR Summit events.

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Initially launched in 2014 in the United States, AIR Summit provides a forum for up-and-coming fintech firms to connect and demonstrate their products to investment managers, traders and other market participants. AIR Summit – London 1.0, sponsored by Plato Partnership, was the first AIR Summit event that took place outside of the US.

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This sponsorship will enable AIR Summit to run annual events in London as well as New York moving forward. Their next event, AIR Summit 5.0, will be held in New York City on September 18-19.

Unlike other fintech and trade-tech conferences, AIR Summit events focus exclusively on Alphatech – technologies that harness cutting-edge algorithms, machine learning and artificial intelligence to assess, predict and improve an investment portfolio’s success.

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In 2020 and beyond, AIR Summit – London will also invite companies that have presented in New York in a bid to encourage a transatlantic discussion around the world of Alpha. To date, 85 companies have presented to the world’s top mutual funds, ETF providers, hedge funds, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds at AIR Summit events in the US and UK.

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Since inception, over US$1.7 billion in fresh capital has been invested in companies following participation at an AIR Summit event and a further 13 have been acquired for over $7 billion.

Bill Stephenson, founder of AIR Summit said: “Last year’s AIR Summit – London 1.0 was a fantastic success. The tried and tested format from the US translated well in the UK, and we received excellent feedback from presenting companies and attendees alike.

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We are delighted to see the appetite for an event focused on the future of Alpha continue to grow, and we are thrilled at the opportunity to continue providing the forum for these crucial discussions. Next year’s AIR Summit – London 2.0 will build on 2019’s success and provide an even bigger and better platform on which to discuss Alpha.”

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Mike Bellaro, CEO of Plato Partnership said: “We believe that discussing and developing technology around alpha is, and will continue to be, essential to the enduring success of the equities marketplace in Europe and beyond. We are proud to be supporting the growth of AIR Summit as it moves from strength to strength.

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We started Plato with a clear mission statement: to give something back to the marketplace and improve the market for end investors. Our support for the AIR Summit is a huge step forward in realising this mission.”

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Carrie Jaquith, VP and Digital Product Manager at Lazard Frères & Co. said: “AIR London was an incredible  opportunity to speak to leaders in fintech’s Alphatech space. The insights surfaced onstage and in the audience around innovative technology in the investment management process left me inspired and informed.

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Bill and Morgan are unique in their ability to curate events focused on this critical area of fintech and offer strategic takeaways across near and long term horizons.”

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Henrik Grunditz, Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer at Hivemind and presenter at last year’s AIR Summit – London 1.0 said: “AIR Summit is an excellent platform for us at Hivemind to interact with industry leaders. The unique format of compact presentations followed by roundtable demonstrations allow us to not only tell, but also show what we are trying to achieve.”

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“Demonstrating how our technology solves complicated data extraction, data enrichment, and data quality problems is always difficult to do in a fast-paced conference environment. AIR Summit offers ample opportunity for demonstration, and crucially ensures that you’re spending that time with the right people – well informed prospects who are eager to know more about your product.”