What are some examples of new entrants in Morningstar’s markets that have tried, but failed?

September 18, 2020

In our more established data offerings, there aren’t many new entrants because the fields are crowded already and it would take a significant amount of new investment to “catch up” to players, like us, who already have a head start.

That said, here are a few examples of new entrants that have tried to gain traction in some of our end markets.

Mattermark, a website that focused on startups, failed to successfully capitalize on the opportunity in the private market data space following its founding in 2012. It sold the business in 2017 at a significant discount to the over $17 million in venture funding it received over the course of five years.

Similarly, Dow Jones recently sold its VentureSource asset to CBInsights after failing to successfully monetize its database of legacy private equity data. 

In Workplace Solutions, we’ve seen numerous robo-advisors attempt to enter the market; however, these providers lack the relationships with retirement plan record-keepers that Morningstar has spent years building and securing. These relationships constitute back-end connections to plan participant data, which is highly sensitive, and our established clients are reluctant to entrust this data with as-yet unproven new market entrants.

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