Incubator Program
For the team starting out, not the team that has arrived
The incubator program gives startup funds and fintechs access to the same datasets the largest banks, fintechs, and US regulators use, at pricing that fits a startup budget. algoseek values long-term relationships, and the incubator is how we start them.
Why we built the incubator
Most startup funds and early-stage fintechs need institutional-grade data from day one but don’t yet have institutional budgets. Cheap data leaves them with results that can’t be trusted; institutional data at full price closes the door before they can prove the strategy or product. The incubator is the path between.
Real data, not toy data
Backtests on consumer-grade data don’t survive contact with production. Startups in the incubator work with the same minute bars, TAQ, options analytics, and reference data that funds and fintechs at scale rely on. The strategy or product you ship is the one you tested.
Pricing that fits the runway
The incubator program works with each applicant to craft pricing that delivers the data your team needs now, at a price within your current ability. Each agreement is per-client and confidential, structured around the budget and timeline of the team in question.
A long-term partnership
The incubator is the start of a relationship, not a one-off discount. As the fund or fintech grows, the engagement grows with it.
Who the incubator is for
The qualification framework depends on what you are building. A trading team demonstrates experience; a fintech discusses the potential product and the team behind it.
Trading businesses, startup funds and prop firms
Early-stage hedge funds, quant prop firms, and trading teams at the start of a fund’s life cycle. Qualification built around experience and background, team composition, and strategies.
Fintechs, pre-funding and seed-stage
Fintech startups building products that depend on institutional-grade market data. Qualification built around the expected product, market opportunity, and the team behind it.
What incubator clients have access to
The agreement is structured so the team can move from research to production without changing data providers. Everything you would get on a standard subscription is available, at pricing that recognizes the stage you are at.
The full algoseek catalog
Equity TAQ, minute bars with up to 90 quantitative fields, OPRA options data with 60+ field bars and contract lifecycle tracking, futures across CME Group, and the full reference data layer including security masters, adjustment factors, and index components.
The same delivery infrastructure
For historical data: S3 download, ArdaDB cloud database with subsecond query latency, RESTful API, and the data sandbox for hands-on exploration. For real-time: the institutional Mercury ticker plant infrastructure, identical to what every other client uses.
Real-time data when ready
The incubator covers historical research first. That is the foundation of any quant strategy. Real-time feeds can be added later through the same engagement, without renegotiating the underlying relationship.
Core team from the trading side
algoseek’s data support comes from people with practitioner backgrounds in quant trading. Incubator clients get the same support quality the institutional clients get. Data questions, pipeline questions, and strategy-level questions are all in scope.
Bespoke pricing arrangements
Each incubator agreement is structured against the specific situation and budget. Pricing is confidential to that agreement.
A clear path to standard pricing
The incubator is structured so the transition to standard pricing happens at predefined milestones: AUM thresholds, funding rounds, or revenue targets. The aim is graduation, not extraction.
Research built on the right data from day one
The single biggest mistake an early-stage quant team or fintech makes is starting with the wrong data. If your backtests run on cleaned-up retail feeds, broken security masters, or weekly-refreshed reference data, every signal you find is conditional on artifacts that will not survive contact with production. You will rebuild your research the day you go live, and the year of work you did before that will not transfer.
The same data should run your research, your out-of-sample testing, your paper trading, and your live execution.
One pipeline, historical and real-time
The historical archive and the streaming feed come from the same Mercury pipeline. There is no gap between the data you research on and the data you trade on.
Battle-hardened security masters
Built and maintained from multiple sources, with cross-referencing against FIGI, ISIN, and others. Tracks ticker changes, mergers, delistings, and corporate actions. Adjustment factors are event-driven and refreshed daily.
Research that survives fundraising
An early-stage fund or fintech that builds on this foundation does not have to throw research away when it raises its first institutional round. The incubator exists so the budget question does not force a team to start in the wrong place.
How the incubator works in practice
From application to data access usually takes two to three weeks, with the bulk of that time spent confirming fit and structuring the agreement. The process is designed to surface a yes or a no quickly. We don’t keep applicants in indefinite review.
Apply
Tell us about you, your team, the fund or fintech, what you’re building, and what data you need. The form below covers everything we need for the first review. No NDA required at this stage.
Discovery call
If the application looks like a fit, we schedule a 30-minute call to understand the use case in more depth, discuss your existing data infrastructure, and understand the data from algoseek’s catalog you have in mind.
Data structure and onboarding
We propose a specific agreement: which datasets, which delivery method, and which milestones trigger graduation to standard pricing. The specifics are agreed during conversations about your needs.
Onboarding and access
Standard 30-day setup and configuration period before billing starts. Data access, infrastructure provisioning, and your first support touchpoints all happen during this window. By the time the meter starts, you are running.
Ongoing partnership
The relationship continues through the life of the fund or fintech. Adding datasets, moving from historical to real-time, restructuring as the team grows. The incubator agreement is the start, not the end, of the algoseek relationship.
Incubator FAQ
Apply to the incubator program
Six fields. None of them require an NDA. Honest and specific answers move the application through review fastest.
Questions before applying?
If you’d rather have a conversation before filling in a form, that route is open too. Our team has structured incubator agreements with funds and fintechs across most of the patterns you’re likely to fit, and a 15-minute call usually clarifies fit before any paperwork.