Alacra

Alacra began in 1996 as Data Downlink Corporation, established by Steven Goldstein and Michael Angle in the United States. Its initial business centered on online access to business and financial information. The company served professional users who needed to find, compare, and organize information about companies, markets, and investment subjects rather than relying solely on general-purpose consumer search. In 2001, Data Downlink adopted the Alacra name as part of a broader corporate-identity and online-information-service change. Under the Alacra brand, the company continued developing tools that aggregated licensed databases and other business-information sources. This model gave institutional researchers a consolidated way to work with materials originating from multiple providers. The target use cases included company research, investment research, competitive analysis, due diligence, and other forms of professional information gathering. In 2009, Alacra launched Alacra Pulse. The product combined conventional business news and investment research with selected blogs and alternative commentary. Its design reflected an effort to broaden research coverage beyond traditional media while preserving a company-focused workflow. Alacra was recognized in industry coverage for monitoring financial commentators and incorporating that material into a structured research feed. During the early 2010s, Alacra's activities increasingly included reference data and regulatory-compliance support. The company provided data-integration and legal-entity-mapping services for financial institutions and professional-services firms. Its Alacra Authority File was described as a database containing information on roughly 200,000 global business entities. The product addressed the need to maintain consistent records for legal entities across compliance, risk, and operational systems, particularly as financial firms faced more demanding customer-identification and reporting requirements. Alacra also developed compliance-oriented services. Alacra Compliance Enterprise and related reference-data products supported workflows associated with know-your-customer checks, customer due diligence, anti-money-laundering controls, and the management of corporate identities. In 2014, NICE Actimize partnered with Alacra to connect those capabilities with NICE Actimize's compliance solutions. In 2015, Alacra extended Authority File Plus with Global Intermediary Identification Numbers and information concerning rated, regulated, and listed entities. Later that year it launched Resolve, a legal-entity lookup function supporting searches through names, legal entity identifiers, GIINs, and other codes. These developments show the company's movement from information retrieval toward entity intelligence and compliance infrastructure. On September 30, 2015, Opus Global acquired Alacra. The price was not disclosed. Reports indicated that Alacra's management team and approximately 70 employees were expected to join Opus. The stated strategic rationale was to combine Alacra's external business and compliance data, including know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering information, with Opus's compliance and third-party-risk platforms, including the Hiperos Third Party Network. After the transaction, publicly available material does not clearly document whether Alacra continued as an independent operating company or how extensively the brand was retained. Its current standalone status therefore remains unknown.

• 2015

  Authority File Plus adds GIIN data

  [1]Alacraen.wikipedia.org

  Alacra added Global Intermediary Identification Numbers and related entity information to its reference-data service.

• 2015

  Resolve launches

  [1]Alacraen.wikipedia.org

  Alacra launched Resolve for searches across entity names, legal entity identifiers, GIINs, and other codes.

• 2015

  Acquisition by Opus Global

  [1]Alacraen.wikipedia.org

  Opus Global acquired Alacra on September 30; the transaction terms were not disclosed.

• 2014

  NICE Actimize partnership

  [1]Alacraen.wikipedia.org

  NICE Actimize partnered with Alacra to integrate compliance and reference-data capabilities into due-diligence and anti-money-laundering solutions.

• 2012

  Reference-data and legal-entity services gain prominence

  [1]Alacraen.wikipedia.org

  Industry coverage identified Alacra as a provider of data integration and legal-entity mapping, including the Authority File database.

• 2009

  Alacra Pulse launches

  [1]Alacraen.wikipedia.org

  Alacra introduced a platform combining business news, investment research, blogs, and alternative commentary for company research.

• 2001

  The company adopts the Alacra name

  [1]Alacraen.wikipedia.org

  Data Downlink Corporation changed its corporate identity and adopted the Alacra name for its online information business.

• 1996

  Data Downlink Corporation is founded

  [1]Alacraen.wikipedia.org

  Steven Goldstein and Michael Angle founded the company that would later become Alacra.

Specialized business-information, entity-resolution, reference-data, and compliance infrastructure for financial institutions, corporations, and professional-services firms.

• Research and news aggregation · 2009

  Alacra Pulse

  A company-research platform launched in 2009. Pulse brought together conventional business news and investment research with selected blogs and alternative commentary. The service was intended to give institutional researchers a wider information set for analyzing companies and markets, while maintaining a focused professional-research experience.

• Legal-entity reference data

  Alacra Authority File

  A reference-data database containing information on approximately 200,000 global business entities, according to contemporary industry descriptions. It was designed to help financial institutions and professional-services firms identify, map, and maintain consistent records for companies and other legal entities across reference-data, risk, and compliance processes.

• Entity intelligence and reference data · 2015

  Authority File Plus

  An expanded entity-data service that included information on rated, regulated, and listed entities. In 2015, Alacra added Global Intermediary Identification Numbers, extending the service's usefulness for regulatory identification and compliance workflows involving financial intermediaries and related legal entities.

• Compliance workflow software

  Alacra Compliance Enterprise

  A compliance-oriented offering associated with customer due diligence, know-your-customer processes, anti-money-laundering controls, and the use of external reference data. In 2014, NICE Actimize partnered with Alacra to integrate this product and Alacra's reference-data capabilities into broader compliance solutions.

• Legal-entity lookup · 2015

  Resolve

  A lookup function launched in 2015 that enabled users to search for entities using names, legal entity identifiers, Global Intermediary Identification Numbers, and other codes. Resolve addressed the practical need to locate and reconcile organizations across multiple identification systems.

• 2015

  Launch of ResolveProduct launch

  Background

  Financial and compliance users needed to identify the same organization across names, legal entity identifiers, GIINs, and other coding systems.

  Action taken

  Alacra introduced Resolve as a multi-identifier legal-entity lookup function.

  Aftermath

  Resolve extended Alacra's entity-resolution and compliance-data portfolio, although later standalone product continuity is not established by the available sources.

  Source

• 2015

  Acquisition by Opus GlobalM&A

  Background

  Alacra had developed business-information, reference-data, know-your-customer, and anti-money-laundering capabilities that complemented Opus Global's compliance and third-party-risk activities.

  Action taken

  Opus Global acquired Alacra on September 30, 2015, with plans to combine Alacra's data and services with Opus platforms, including the Hiperos Third Party Network.

  Aftermath

  Alacra's management team and approximately 70 employees were expected to join Opus. The transaction's financial terms were not disclosed, and the subsequent independent status of the Alacra brand is unclear.

  Source

• 2009

  Launch of Alacra PulseProduct launch

  Background

  Professional researchers increasingly used both traditional financial media and online commentary when assessing companies.

  Action taken

  Alacra created Pulse to combine business news and investment research with selected blogs and alternative commentary.

  Aftermath

  The offering broadened Alacra's research aggregation model and was noted for monitoring financial commentators beyond traditional media outlets.

  Source

• 2001

  Corporate identity changes to AlacraStrategy

  Background

  The company had operated as Data Downlink Corporation since its founding and was developing an online business-information service.

  Action taken

  It adopted the Alacra name as part of a change in corporate identity and online information positioning.

  Aftermath

  The Alacra name became associated with the company's business-information, research, reference-data, and compliance offerings.

  Source

1. 1Alacraen.wikipedia.org