Atlas Q&A [Part 3]

Part 3 of our Q&A Series is centred around how Atlas can help bring information available for public companies to private markets, and the value of micro-sectors in creating a more granular classification system. 

Overview: Atlas was born out of a need for our models to better understand impact by mapping companies, products and relationships in a completely different way from anything currently available. This new technology is built on a brand-new, dynamic structure that can adapt to a constantly changing economic reality, and the possibilities for how to best utilise it are numerous‍

1. Does Atlas include private companies?

Yes, Atlas can bring the same information available for public companies to private markets. Our technology can identify individual products and services of private companies from public sources and map them into Atlas’ classification system.

The value lies within:

• Private Market Investments: Atlas can help private market investors identify companies they could be interested in, by looking up a specific class of product (e.g.: recyclable materials), and understanding the matrix of products and companies associated with it in the larger ecosystem.
• Cross-sector Competition & Benchmarking: Currently, the process of researching and comparing a company’s closest competitors (e.g.: when a company is going through IPO or fundraising)  is quite a resource-intensive process. Atlas can easily identify information about a company’s peers and competitors, public and private alike.
• Higher Quality Information: Atlas will bring more granular, high-quality information about private companies’ revenue-generating activities.

2. What are microsectors and how does Atlas bring their value to light?

In traditional classification systems, standard sectors are very broad. This leads to standard sets of competitors that may not be exactly accurate. Microsectors can more accurately pinpoint the competitive position and performance of a company’s products and services by providing more granular information.

For example, in traditional classification systems, Amazon is included in the “e-commerce” sector. However, in reality, Amazon is a giant conglomerate that provides myriad products and services in addition to e-commerce, like streaming services, production, cloud computing, food and beverage, and so on. 

The value lies within:

• Performance Tracking: Atlas enables tracking performance at the microsector level (e.g. ‘streaming’ which includes businesses like Disney, Amazon, and Paramount that are completely different taken as a whole, but competitors in the microsecto.).
• Competitive Research: Atlas allows for research into peers (e.g.: easily look up streaming revenue across Apple, Netflix and Disney+ to see how Amazon compares). Currently, this process is complicated since these companies are traditionally not classified in the same sector. When Atlas is complete, it will be able to compare any microsector to another micro- or macro-sector. 

• This is useful when looking at a large sector like Technology, for example, which is often too big to compare different business lines. Atlas will enable one to drill down into a particular microsector and compare a particular function of multiple giant conglomerates.  For example, you can compare Hulu’s traction year on year to that of Amazon Prime Video.

• Improved indexes: More focused and specific indexes to better track and compare companies in a way that sectors and industries lack. (Ex: Indexes linked to windpower [microsector] versus renewable energy [sector] will have different adjacent products, services, technologies and competitors).

This post wraps up our 3-part Q&A series about Project Atlas. If you missed the previous posts, you can catch up on Part 1 and Part 2 on our website. This series reveals just the tip of the Atlas iceberg, there’s plenty more in store.

If you’re interested in learning more about Atlas please get in touch!