IGNITE Program Sparks Momentum for BCMstrategy

Earlier this year, BCMstrategy, Inc. received a Prince William County Department of Economic Development IGNITE Startup Grant for the high-growth of their signature product, PolicyScope™, which automatically measures and analyzes public policy risks. Since then, BCMstrategy has not slowed down. 

The company has been using patented technology to generate quantitative data from public policy since early 2019. Yet the IGNITE funding allowed Barbara C. Matthews, Founder and CEO, to establish their offices in Brickyard Cowork in Woodbridge.

"Brickyard’s dynamic facility and fabulous staff have provided us with the perfect place for our business,” says Matthews. 

Our IGNITE Startup Grants are offered to high-growth companies who are already located here or are looking to locate in Prince William County. Grants are offered at the 25K, 50K, and 100K levels depending on the applicant’s qualifications. Learn more at ignite.pwcded.org!

Matthews has continued to improve the award-winning, patented, backtested multivariate time series data and the underlying structured language data to provide advocates and quantitative finance professionals with the foundation for measuring exposure to a range of public policy risks objectively and in real-time. 

BCMstrategy, Inc. recently released upgraded datasets for digital currency policy, climate finance policy, and monetary policy that align to capital market automated workflows by attaching stock market ticker symbols to its data. This process is called “tickerization.”

Portfolio managers and strategists can now measure their exposure to public policy risks in relation to a broad range of sector market indices, ETFs, equity and fixed income instruments, leading digital and reserve currencies, and selected commodities. Spikes in verbal activity regarding specific policy issues can now be translated immediately and automatically into quantitative investment risk assessments:

The company also continues to accept new investment, including a leading technology company (KiwiTech) and a venture capital fund focused on female founders (Copper Wire). In addition, BCMstrategy was awarded a Commonwealth Commercialization Fund grant to undertake deep tech research and development work that supported the tickerization initiative.

"The KiwiTech investment brings within reach a range of machine learning, natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technologies which will accelerate our delivery of the next phase of decision intelligence tools trained on our curated, objective data," says Matthews. "When portfolio managers and strategic analysts can anticipate public policy trajectories using objective data, they make better decisions."

Matthews is also excited to expand the BCMstrategy team, including a new senior advisor, and the two undergraduates from George Mason University who served as sales and marketing interns over the summer.

"The IGNITE Startup Grant early this year served as a catalyst and provided us with a foundation for generating forward progress throughout 2022,” says Matthews. “We look forward to building on this momentum during 2023 and beyond.”