The 2017 Trading Tech 40: John Fawcett

Quantitative investment firm Quantopian is built on crowdsourcing. The platform connects more than 100,000 members from 180 countries who have created more than 400,000 algorithms. "Anyone with interest in coding and a passion for finance can get paid if their algorithm is chosen to be included in our investment management business," its website says. Founded in Boston in 2011 by John Fawcett and Jean Bredeche, Quantopian has raised about $50 million in venture capital from the likes of Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, and Spark Capital. Joining that group last summer was Point72 Ventures, an arm of Point72 Asset Management, the family office led by SAC Capital Advisors founder Steven Cohen. Concurrently, Point72 Asset Management committed to allocate up to $250 million to Quantopian's algos.

CEO Fawcett, 39, was a founder and chief technology officer of Tamale Software, developer of an investment research management system, which was acquired in 2008 by Advent Software, now part of SS&C Technologies. Quantopian CTO Bredeche also worked at Tamale and Advent. Jonathan Larkin, formerly of Hudson Bay Capital Management and BlueCrest Capital Management, joined Quantopian last June as chief investment officer.