Meet the company demystifying the crypto market.
Bitcoin. We’ve all heard of it, heard both the success and horror stories. With the cryptocurrency market booming and here to stay, it’s important to understand how the market works, which cryptocurrencies are riskier than others, and how to profit. Meet Node Capital. Node Capital is a technology development and data science company that provides a comprehensive range of data science and digital analytics tools to service the cryptocurrency trading needs of hedge funds, private equity funds, fund of funds, private wealth management, investment management and banks.
Node Capital uses data science to build investment vehicles to navigate and evaluate cryptocurrency exchanges. Its data science platform allows it to find the most efficient trading paths, which yield the highest investment returns through leveraging currency arbitrage. The company is led by Earl, Mlondi, Corey, and Steven. The four met at a conference with the intention of starting a company, and after having a conversation about the industry, decided to join forces and tackle the industry.
Earl has a background in sports management, marketing, and technology. He not only worked for NBA teams, but also for Sony where he handled their World Cup sponsorship. Living between New York and South Africa, Earl founded a few sports tech companies, then pivoted to traditional startups. He took an interest in cryptocurrency and looked into a couple of opportunities. Mlondi also has a sports tech background, and has founded several analytics companies after working in fan analytics for a NFL team.
Corey and Steven are experts at algorithm architecture. Algorithms are essentially math principles that are accompanied by computing. Steven and Corey are great at devising them from an academic approach, then automating them to build products. The two were interested and extremely knowledgeable about cryptocurrencies even before the hype. They are builders at heart, and dedicated to their craft.
Everyone on the team has different personalities and skills that complement one another. Earl likes to build products that are simple and clean with a consistent experience. Mlondi is more compliance-oriented and as Earl puts it, “knows how to keep a ship afloat.” Steven and Corey are the brains behind how Node’s products are designed. The team recognizes that they all need each other; despite having different areas of expertise and different personalities, they work very well together.
Earl had known Mlondi for a while, and after meeting Steven and Corey, discussed a few ways to look into blockchain and cryptocurrency. The team’s first idea was a cryptocurrency lottery, but they quickly realized the stringent regulatory environment. They then thought of starting a cryptocurrency hedge fund. However, the team soon came to the conclusion that they didn’t want to be in the hedge fund business due to due extensive regulatory requirements as well. Instead, they set out on building a company that can provide data science services to the cryptocurrency marketplace and would consequently be of great value to hedge funds. And so Node Capital was born, an agnostic service provider that launched in June 2017.
Node’s first product was Cyphr.ai, an automated trading bot that would handle triangular arbitrage for cryptocurrency exchanges. With this product under their belt, the Node team was accepted into Quake and soon realized they had a bigger goal of applying data science and building algorithms after listening to Founding Partner Glenn Argenbright speak about vision.
Node’s big vision to is to be similar to Microsoft or Google, in that it wants to be an agnostic provider of various data science services for the cryptocurrency market. Node’s next product, Prsm.ai, forecasts cryptocurrency performance, cutting through the hype and speculation around crypto to apply data intelligence. Node also makes its services user-friendly, and intends to scale down its products to the point where people understand what is being released and what they are reading. Earl likens it to restaurant ratings on a letter scale, ratings that would show users the quality of certain cryptocurrencies.
In one year, the Node team hopes to be recognized globally as a company that has designed practical, useful, and intuitive products. Earl sees Corey and Steven as thought leaders in the space as well. Node sees itself being of service to the market and helping the cryptocurrency industry move forward while clearing up the misconceptions and uncertainty around cryptocurrency.
Earl emphasized that acceptance into Quake’s accelerator was not about the money, but about other resources like insight and experience. Glenn and the rest of Quake’s leadership team have a wealth of knowledge, as well as the connectivity and network. The Node team sees their time at Quake opening doors and helping them learn and grow.
If one thing’s for certain, both cryptocurrency and Node Capital are here to stay. Quake is excited to be a part of this journey, and ready to see the waves Node makes.
