SESAMm is pleased to announce the appointment of David Platt to its Advisory Board. David has spent his career at the intersection of M&A, corporate strategy, and risk intelligence - most recently as Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer at Moody’s Corporation, where he contributed to the diversification of one of the world's leading financial data companies.

During his twelve years at Moody’s, David helped architect the firm’s diversification into data, analytics, and technology-driven risk assessment. He oversaw more than 75 transactions valued at $9 billion, including landmark acquisitions in climate risk, cybersecurity, and private company data. Before Moody’s, he held senior M&A roles at Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Credit Suisse First Boston, advising on complex transactions and corporate strategy for global clients.

“Over the course of my career, I’ve focused on helping organizations scale by expanding into new markets, strengthening their strategic foundations, and building platforms that help institutions better measure, manage, and understand risk,” said David Platt. "SESAMm has built an impressive platform at the intersection of AI and risk intelligence, and I’m excited to support the team as they shape their strategy and scale the business globally.”

David’s appointment comes as SESAMm continues to scale its AI-powered risk intelligence platform and expand its global presence. His experience driving profitable and strategic growth initiatives and scaling data and analytics platforms will help guide the company’s strategic direction.

"David has sat on both sides of the table, as a buyer of data and analytics capabilities, and as a trusted advisor to some of the world's largest financial institutions," said Sylvain Forté, CEO and Co-Founder of SESAMm. "That perspective will be invaluable as we shape SESAMm’s strategic direction and execute our next phase of growth."

David is a CFA charterholder and has served on the boards of BitSight Technologies and ICRA, an Indian credit rating agency. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

SESAMm has secured Series B2 funding, and I want to share my excitement about this milestone and reflect on the journey.

After months of hard work from our team, we closed on a €35 million Series B2 funding round led by Elaia and Opera Tech Ventures (BNPP), which followed a €7.5M B1 round led by New Alpha and Carlyle in January 2021. That means we can now pursue the next phase of SESAMm’s growth.

We want to accomplish many things with this investment, and I’m incredibly grateful to all of our investors, partners, and clients who helped us during this process. But before I talk about them and SESAMm’s future, I can’t help but think about how the company started.

Academic beginnings

It’s still hard to believe that SESAMm sprouted from an idea, an academic project, and three college students. I still remember Pierre Rinaldi asking me to develop the first algorithms that used social media to analyze financial markets while in school. Pierre worked at a bank trading desk while finishing his studies and doing a research internship at a behavioral finance lab, where the idea came up for the project. I studied engineering and was passionate about AI already, so I started coding, and the first project was born.

Eventually, this project outgrew my capabilities. The volume of data involved needed hardcore algorithms to process them, the kind of algorithms Florian Aubry could build. Florian was the best developer in my engineering school, and lucky for us, he was also my friend.

Before long, we started renting servers, optimizing code, and building signals based chiefly on Twitter data, reproducing research papers that also used text data to generate sentiment indicators for financial markets. You could say that this project had become more than academic at this point. But it really only became a company once we won our first startup award.

The award that sparked the launch of a company

We participated in a competition organized by local incubator SEMIA with support from Société Générale as a way to gain credibility for the project, and would you know, we won. The award was monetary, and we could receive it on one condition: that we launch an actual company.

You probably already know that starting a business is a big decision, at least it was for Pierre, Florian, and me. After all, we were still in school, trying to finish our degrees and looking to start new careers. Our choices could be life-altering. Pierre, for instance, planned to take a full-time job at the bank he was working at.

In the end, we chose SESAMm. Pierre didn’t take the job at the bank. I did my end-of-study internship at SESAMm, which allowed me to focus on the company 100% while finishing my degree. And Florian dedicated all his time and energy to the startup, too. In other words, we were all in, and our school project had officially become a business.

Pressure to build

Setting up a company was relatively easy. Building a business, as it turns out, is way harder. How would we take SESAMm’s product and put it to work? Pierre’s contacts, that’s how.

One by one, Pierre called on everyone he knew from school that worked in trading, offering them a chance to be the first to test the latest AI innovation: using social media for financial analysis. Back then, Pierre had more of a sales role. He’s now COO and head of HR, in case you were wondering.

Our first client was a trader from London. He put $50,000 into a strategy based on SESAMm’s signals. With our signals, the trader grew his portfolio with such performance that he began to raise capital, including for a hedge fund. Ultimately, he was trading $50 million from the strategy. It was the kind of success and track record we needed in the finance industry to take SESAMm to the next level.

Compelled to move…literally

Having demonstrated success, an investment firm, a venture firm called Fonds Venture Numérique Lorrain, reached out to us with interest in investing in SESAMm’s first round of funding. But they had two conditions:

1. SESAMm must move to Metz, a startup-friendly hub in the Lorraine region in France.
2. SESAMm must seek additional funding from other investors.

At the time, SESAMm was based in Strasbourg because that’s where Florian and I studied. And for all intents and purposes, we hadn’t planned on moving.

Also, aside from Pierre reaching out to school acquaintances to try our solution, we had never pitched anyone to fund our company before. Pierre, Florian, and I faced a serious choice and challenge.

What did we do, and how did we fare?

We reached out to business angels and pitched numerous times while continuing to work on the product and starting to plan the first recruitments. We learned a lot during this initial period about how to structure a company and present it to investors. At the time, startups were less common in the region and using online content from YC and other accelerators was invaluable for us.

SESAMm’s headquarters is now in Metz, and we currently have offices in Paris, London, Tunis, New York, and Tokyo. We’ve also diversified our technology and clientele, particularly in ESG and corporate spaces. In other words, we faced the challenge, moved our headquarters, and grew and evolved a lot!

Series B2 funding round challenges

That brings us to the recent past. We’ve grown our company so much that it was time for another funding round, and the timing wasn’t the best. Our teamwork and ability to communicate effectively across regions and cultures were vital in tackling this latest fundraising round. We decided to run the entire process in-house as it was important to us to not only demonstrate our ability to do so but also to build our own VC relationships.

Moreover, we’ve had a unique previous fundraising experience. Having been funded by FinTech venture capital firm NewAlpha Asset Management and a large private equity firm like Carlyle Group Inc. in earlier rounds helped us improve our processes and standardize our communications. We felt ready for this challenge.

Frankly speaking, though, between the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, startup funding had become a much bigger challenge. Things weren’t popping like they were a couple of years ago, so we needed to be cautious and conservative yet bold and compelling. Regardless, we dug deep and stuck with the plan, with a focus on our numbers and our vision.

To achieve our goal, we created an internal team, onboarded two advisors, and created a scalable process. The internal team included SESAMm’s C-suite: CEO (Sylvain Forté), COO (Pierre Rinaldi), CTO (Florian Aubry), CFO (Marie-Charlotte Deucher), CMO (Jorge Alvarez), and CDO (Eric Sionnet). Our advisors provided guidance around strategy, gave feedback, and supplied operational help when needed. And from our pitch deck variations to our storage and sharing policies, we established a fine-tuned communication and project management process to keep us on task and on time. It was a good process, and it really helped us manage things efficiently while maintaining control over day-to-day operations. I can’t say it enough: process is always the key.

Fundraising wasn’t easy, but the process was worthwhile. And all this to say that I couldn’t be happier to announce that SESAMm has wrapped up its Series B2 funding round. With this money, we plan to further expand into the U.S. and Asian markets and continue SESAMm’s exponential growth. We’ll also seek key talent to sustain this growth and support the development of our AI technology.

Pleased, grateful, and excited for what comes next

Today, SESAMm is a healthy and fast-growing company. And as COO, CTO, and CEO, respectively, Pierre, Florian, and I are now more than a scrappy group of students. We’re a crew with the support of many contributors, consisting of more than 100 employees across many offices and cultures. It’s because of the teamwork and collaboration that SESAMm is where it is today. And I’m immensely grateful for all our team’s effort and the tremendous support we get from clients, investors, and advisors every day.

Thank you for being a part of our journey, and see you at SESAMm’s next milestone. Cheers!

Read the press release: “SESAMm Raises €35M in Series B2 to Grow its ESG and Sentiment Analysis Business.”

In an era of growing regulatory pressure and public scrutiny, staying ahead of ESG-related risks is more important than ever. That’s why we’re introducing UNGC Violation Screening, a powerful new capability that automatically flags ESG controversies potentially breaching the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) Principles.

Built with compliance and transparency in mind, this feature enables you to:

• Stay ahead of reputational and compliance risks
• Evaluate global norm breaches with a standardized lens
• Focus your attention on the events that matter most

Powered by advanced AI and large language models, SESAMm classifies millions of ESG events in real time, helping you prioritize reputational and compliance risks at scale.

Why UNGC Violation Screening Matters

Whether you're tracking supply chain risks or screening investments for SFDR alignment, SESAMm’s new feature offers a standardized approach to evaluating potential UNGC breaches. It helps you:

• Stay compliant: Built to align with the 10 UNGC Principles and SFDR PAI 10, this feature supports streamlined compliance workflows and helps ensure you're meeting disclosure and due diligence obligations.
• Surface critical risks fast: Quickly detect ESG controversies tied to UNGC violations, without relying solely on manual review.
• Quickly prioritize critical ESG issues: Standardized risk scoring cuts through irrelevant noise.
  

Three Levels of Risk Classification

Each ESG controversy is categorized by severity:

• Violator: Clear and explicit breaches of the UNGC Principles, backed by evidence such as official sanctions, public admissions, or substantial regulatory fines.
• Watchlist: Potential serious violations where evidence is partial or inconclusive. These events suggest possible misconduct but fall short of confirming a clear breach.
• Low Risk:  Events that raise concerns but lack evidence of a UNGC violation. While no breach is confirmed, these cases still merit monitoring.

Each classification includes a justification, offering full transparency into the rationale behind the label. For example:

"Shein’s acknowledgment of child labor practices within its supply chain raises serious concerns regarding human rights violations and labor standards. The company’s prior actions [...] indicate a high-risk breach of multiple UNGC principles.”

A Closer Look: Rio Tinto

Consider the case of Rio Tinto, which agreed to pay a $15 million fine following foreign bribery charges. The company was accused of making improper payments to a consultant linked to a former Guinean official to secure mining rights in Guinea. Since then, Rio Tinto has cooperated with the investigation, improved its internal controls, and terminated employees involved in the misconduct, while maintaining its commitment to ethical business practices.

While serious, SESAMm’s UNGC Violation Screening labeled this incident not as a full violation, but rather Watchlist level. Why? Because investigators acknowledged that the company:

• Cooperated with authorities
• Was unaware of the employee’s misconduct
• Took disciplinary action and corrective steps

This demonstrates the power of SESAMm’s nuanced approach: balancing evidence and context to provide actionable, explainable insights.

UNGC Screening: Designed for Today’s Compliance Landscape

As expectations rise, investors, sustainability teams, and risk managers need tools that go beyond checkbox compliance. SESAMm’s UNGC Violation Screening delivers speed, clarity, and global coverage, helping you meet your due diligence goals and protect against reputational fallout.

Ready to integrate UNGC breach detection into your workflow?  Contact us to learn more or request a demo.

SESAMm’s AI Technology Reveals ESG Insights

Discover unparalleled insights into ESG controversies, risks, and opportunities across industries. Learn more about how SESAMm can help you analyze millions of private and public companies using AI-powered text analysis tools.