If your data helps investors see a company’s performance before it shows up in earnings, MSCI wants to hear from you.
BattleFin has partnered with MSCI to launch a new Alt Data Provider Showcase Competition, a chance for emerging alternative data providers to put their datasets in front of one of the most influential index, analytics and data businesses in global finance. Three winners will present at BattleFin Discovery Day Miami 2027 and receive a $12,500 sponsorship at a BattleFin event of their choice.
Applications close December 4, 2026.
Why this matters for alternative data providers
Getting your data into MSCI’s ecosystem means reaching nearly every major institution in the market. MSCI counts 98 of the top 100 asset managers, 94 of the top 100 pension funds and 82 of the top 100 banks among its clients. Around $21 trillion in assets is benchmarked to MSCI indexes, and its risk analytics process more than 5.9 billion positions every week.
For a growing data company, that’s distribution you can’t easily build on your own.
Who can apply
The competition is designed for firms that are new to MSCI. Your firm must not have, and must not have previously had, a data supplier or services relationship with MSCI.
Competition themes (ranked by MSCI priority)
Datasets in any of the following areas are eligible, but MSCI is most focused on those near the top:
Supply chain and physical-world resilience: shipping, freight, transport and geospatial data
Semantic content and sentiment: earnings transcripts, sell-side research, news and social media
Macro and economic data: economic indicators, consumer spending and inflation
Flow and fund transparency: retail, fund, asset and hedge fund flows used as leading signals
Company and private-company data: company descriptions, product catalogs and private-company fundamentals
MSCI has also flagged specific target areas: thematic equity indexes (identifying real exposure to themes like AI, clean energy or cybersecurity based on what companies actually do), commodities, REITs, oil and gas, and fixed income.
How MSCI evaluates submissions
Every dataset is reviewed against six criteria:
Coverage: ideally around 90% of cumulative issuer market cap in the MSCI ACWI IMI
Accuracy and completeness: validated against reference sources with minimal gaps
Timeliness: reliable delivery with a lag compatible with index rebalancing
History and corporate events: long point-in-time history that handles mergers, spin-offs and identifier changes
Governance: a transparent, rules-based, auditable methodology
No restrictions: freedom to create and sell financial products built on the data
Where your data could appear
Winning data could feed into MSCI products in three ways: new thematic and custom indexes tracked by ETFs and structured products; new factors, signals and risk insights in Barra and MSCI’s analytics tools; and listings on the MSCI Data Marketplace alongside MSCI’s own data.
Potential commercial models include direct data subscriptions, revenue sharing on index licensing and analytics, and additional client license fees. (These models are non-contractual, vary by product and usage, and depend on a signed agreement with MSCI.)
What to submit
Keep it concise. Include:
A short description of your dataset(s)
Coverage and delivery methods
How much history you have
One or two anonymized case studies showing impact
The prize
Three winners will each be eligible to:
Present at BattleFin Discovery Day Miami, January 20–22, 2027
Receive a $12,500 sponsorship at an upcoming BattleFin event of their choice
Winners will be announced live in Miami.
Apply by December 4
If your data reveals what’s happening in the real economy before the market sees it, this is your opportunity to get in front of MSCI.
All partnerships are subject to review by MSCI’s Research and Data teams.