What S3 Partners does

S3 Partners is a private financial data and analytics firm that pioneered the positioning data category for institutional investors, founded circa 2003-2005 and headquartered in New York with regional offices in London and Hong Kong. The company provides daily long and short positioning intelligence across more than 65,000 global securities, covering over $200 trillion in assets under intelligence and serving more than 500 financial institutions, including hedge funds, asset managers, prime brokerages, and investment banks.

The company's core technology combines aggregated and anonymized buy-side positions, sell-side bank and broker securities lending data, exchange-reported short interest, and global regulatory filings into a proprietary data lake built over more than 20 years. S3 delivers this through four core data feeds (Short Interest, Long Interest, MAP, Disclosures), Bloomberg Terminal native applications (Black App, BMAP, Yellow Key status) and a browser-based Black App Web, plus four workflow platforms (Blacklight, Blackwire, Blackline, Locates) that connect more than 50 prime brokers, ISDA counterparties, custodians, and lending agents. The company's machine-learning models produce weekly Long Interest projections 45 days ahead of regulatory filings with validated directional accuracy of 90-93 percent across manager cohorts.

S3 operates an enterprise subscription revenue model with no public list pricing, targeting institutional buy-side and sell-side firms through a sales-led motion. Distribution is embedded within Bloomberg Terminal, Goldman Sachs Marquee, Snowflake, AWS, FactSet, LSEG Workspace, SS&C Eze, and Omega Point. The company received a strategic credit investment from Aquiline Capital Partners in January 2025 and is led by founder Bob Sloan alongside CTO Satyajit Bhattacharya and COO Gabe Kanengiser.

Name

S3 Partners

Legal name

S3 Partners, LLC

Website

https://s3partners.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2005

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

S3 Partners is a private financial data firm providing daily long and short positioning intelligence, analytics, and workflow platforms across 65K+ global securities for 500+ institutional investors, including hedge funds, asset managers, prime brokerages, and investment banks.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Data and Analytics Subscription: S3 provides data feeds, terminal applications, and workflow platforms through enterprise subscription agreements. Data is delivered via Bloomberg Terminal (Yellow Key), Goldman Sachs Marquee, Snowflake, AWS, FactSet, LSEG Workspace, SS&C Eze, Omega Point, Direct API, and SFTP. Pricing is enterprise/custom with no publicly disclosed list rates. The company targets 500+ financial institutions globally.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

S3 Partners sells proprietary positioning data and analytics to institutional investors, providing true daily global short interest, AI-powered predictive long interest 45 days ahead of regulatory filings, cohort-level long positioning across 65K+ global securities, and Plaid-like workflow platforms that aggregate positions, financing, and counterparty data across prime brokers, custodians, and lending agents. Data is delivered via Bloomberg Terminal, Goldman Sachs Marquee, Snowflake, AWS, FactSet, LSEG, and direct API/SFTP under enterprise subscription agreements.

Product overview

S3 Partners offers a comprehensive positioning data and analytics platform for institutional investors, delivering long and short positioning data, analytics, and workflow tools. The portfolio includes four core data feeds (MAP, Long Interest, Short Interest, Disclosures), four terminal/desktop applications (Black App, BMAP, S3 on Bloomberg, Black App Web), and four workflow platforms (Blacklight, Blackwire, Blackline, Locates). Together these products provide institutional investors with true daily short interest data (the only provider globally), AI-powered predictive long positioning 45 days ahead of filings, cohort analytics across 2,500+ hedge fund managers, and Plaid-like workflow platforms connecting prime brokers and counterparties for positions, balances, and financing reconciliation.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Short Interest True daily global short interest data feed covering 65K+ securities, sourced from aggregated and anonymized buy-side positions, sell-side bank and broker securities lending data, exchange-reported short interest, and global regulatory filings, paired with full financing rates (bid, offer, last). For institutional investors needing accurate, non-stale short positioning.
• Long Interest AI-powered predictive weekly long positioning feed providing 45-day advance projections of Active, Passive, and Hedge Fund Manager holdings across 37K+ global equities. For institutional investors needing forward visibility into institutional ownership before filings.
• MAP (Markets Analytics & Positioning) Daily cohort-level long positioning data feed across 47K+ global equities, sourced from real-time regulatory and exchange feeds across 100+ countries, with 2,500+ hedge fund managers segmented across 11 proprietary cohorts and Long Crowded plus Ownership Diversification scores. For institutional investors, quant researchers, and risk managers needing cohort-level ownership analytics.
• Disclosures Normalized regulatory short position filings dataset covering 100+ countries, delivered as point-in-time and revised feeds at the same cadence as Short Interest. For institutional investors needing consistent cross-jurisdiction disclosure data.
• Black App on Bloomberg Native Bloomberg App Store application providing real-time short interest, financing rates, Crowded and Squeeze Risk scores, screening, alerting, charting, and drill-down capabilities for short-side positioning. For Bloomberg Terminal users at institutional firms.
• BMAP on Bloomberg Native Bloomberg App Store application for long-side positioning and crowding analytics with entity and cohort-level holdings analytics, screening, and top-holder breakouts. For Bloomberg Terminal users needing long-side ownership intelligence.
• S3 on Bloomberg Bloomberg Terminal integration providing Yellow Key functions (TRST, CNVA, FLDS, W), BQL formulas for data retrieval and computation, and Data License access via SFTP, REST API, and major cloud providers. For institutional Bloomberg Terminal users.
• Black App Web Browser-based application providing full short-side coverage accessible on any device without requiring Bloomberg Terminal, giving access to the complete S3 short-side dataset. For institutional users without Bloomberg access.
• Blacklight Workflow platform connecting 50+ prime brokers, ISDA counterparties, custodians, and lending agents into one reconciled view aggregating long, short, synthetics, cash, and collateral, with real-time margin and collateral dashboards and Wallet Analysis drill-down. For operations, finance, risk, and trading teams at institutional firms.
• Blackwire Automated security finance workflow platform featuring a Rate Improvement Blotter that benchmarks borrows and lent longs against the S3 Market Composite, with one-click rate improvement requests typically driving 80% counterparty response, plus Financing and Lending TCA dashboards tracking realized savings. For prime brokerage, securities lending, and trading desks.
• Blackline Document review, negotiation, and benchmarking platform for prime brokerage, derivative, trading, lending, and custody agreements across 130+ document types, leveraging a proprietary library of 10,000+ negotiated documents and counterparty risk scorecards. For legal, operations, and counterparty management teams.
• Locates Automated locate lifecycle management platform covering locate request, approval, audit, and reporting with pre-borrow and overnight workflows across global prime brokers. For short-selling operations and trading desks.

Quantifiable outcome

• 90% magnitude accuracy and 91% directional accuracy for Passive manager Long Interest predictions; 81% magnitude and 90% directional for Active managers; 73% magnitude and 93% directional for Hedge Fund Managers
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration8 records

AI capability3 records

Feature10 records

Scale indicators8 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Ortex: Ortex is a leading short interest data provider for equities, offering real-time short interest estimates sourced from securities lending data. It directly competes with S3's Short Interest product on daily short interest coverage and squeeze scoring, serving both institutional and retail investors.
• Kaizen Reporting: Kaizen Reporting provides global securities lending analytics, including short interest data and borrow rate transparency for institutional clients. It directly competes with S3 in short interest and securities lending analytics with comparable data products and institutional customer focus.
• EquiLend: EquiLend operates a leading securities lending trading platform and analytics, including the DataLend securities lending data product. It directly competes with S3's Blackwire and securities lending workflow products on counterparty and rate analytics for the institutional securities finance market.

Broad incumbents

• S&P Global Market Intelligence: S&P Global Market Intelligence (formed via S&P's acquisition of IHS Markit) provides securities lending analytics, financial data, and market intelligence across multiple asset classes. Its Securities Finance product directly competes with S3's Blackwire and securities lending analytics, with broader financial data breadth and bundled institutional distribution.
• Bloomberg: Bloomberg Terminal is the dominant institutional financial data platform. Bloomberg is both a distribution partner for S3 (via Yellow Key status) and a potential competitor, with deep analytics, securities lending data, and ownership coverage that could be expanded to compete directly with S3's positioning suite.
• FactSet: FactSet provides integrated financial data, analytics, and workflow tools to institutional investors. It competes broadly with S3 via ownership, fundamentals, and analytics offerings, and distributes S3 data through FactSet Workspace, creating both partnership and competitive dynamics.
• LSEG (Refinitiv): London Stock Exchange Group (which acquired Refinitiv) provides financial market data, analytics, and trading infrastructure. It offers securities lending data, ownership analytics, and short interest products that overlap with S3's suite, and distributes S3 data through LSEG Workspace.
• MSCI: MSCI provides investment decision-support tools, including index data, ESG analytics, and portfolio risk analytics. While MSCI does not directly compete in short interest, its analytics breadth and institutional distribution create competitive overlap in the broader investment data category.

Emerging players

• Hedgeye: Hedgeye is an independent investment research firm offering fundamental and quantitative analysis, including positioning and crowding perspectives for institutional and retail investors. It overlaps with S3's positioning analytics but focuses more on research-driven insights than raw institutional data.
• Visible Alpha: Visible Alpha (now part of S&P Global) provides detailed company-level consensus estimates and sell-side research aggregation for institutional investors. It overlaps with S3 in serving institutional investors with structured data products, though focused on fundamentals rather than positioning.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/s3-partners-llc
• Xx.com/S3Partners

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about S3 Partners