Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Artificial intelligence is playing an ever-increasing part in many aspects of our lives. One Swedish start-up, Batonics, is specializing in providing AI-backed analyst functions in illiquid assets, such as real estate. Serge Houles, formerly managing director and chief client officer at IPM Informed Portfolio Management, has joined Batonics as an advisor to spearhead business development and fundraising in the Nordics and beyond.
Relying on the natural language (NL) field of artificial intelligence, Batonics seeks to automate analyst functions in the asset management industry. The firm has developed seven engines for various clients in the real estate sector, including a Monte Carlo simulation for cost-sensitivity analysis and assessing the impact of costs on real estate investment returns. While Batonics has mainly gained traction in real estate and private markets since its launch in 2019, the company is also developing a platform to automate investment analysis and scouting processes for liquid asset classes.
The focus on real estate and private markets was partly influenced by the contact network of the business development team at Batonics. The addition of Serge Houles as an advisor aims to support Batonics in expanding into the more liquid and public markets. “Despite aiming to cover the broad spectrum of asset classes, Batonics has over the past months mainly acquired clients and developed engines on the illiquid assets side of the spectrum, which happens to stand less automated than liquid markets for obvious reasons,” says Ahmed AlNomany, founder of Batonics.
“Serge’s onboarding will help us expand with our AI and automation engines more on the liquid and public side of the market, and inform it with his insider knowledge of pain points in the industry.”
“Given that imbalance, Serge’s onboarding will help us expand with our AI and automation engines more on the liquid and public side of the market, and inform it with his insider knowledge of pain points in the industry,” AlNomany comments on the appointment of Serge Houles as an advisor. “Serge will also have a geographic focus on our home turf of Nordics since most of our client engagements now are Americas based.”
Serge Houles spent over eight years at IPM Informed Portfolio Management (IPM), which ceased all investment activities in 2021 after more than two decades of operation. Houles joined IPM in August of 2013 as Executive Director and Head of Client Portfolio Management, heading the investment strategy team that acted as a bridge between investment research and clients. After his tenure at IPM, Houles has been serving as a consultant at hedge fund firm Balyasny Europe Asset Management, among other roles.
