Last November, we took a look at Artis Works and its Folio software – “it forms a new category of cloud SaaS product aimed at commodities trading with an initial focus on Oil and Gas, replacing the Excel market valuation tool and in some cases Reuters, Bloomberg and ICE Connect,”according to CEO, Sebastian Ferraccu. Last week, we caught up with Sebastian for an update. He reports increasing interest in Folio with new users coming on board and a couple of very large traders trialing the solution. In the time since we last spoke, Artis Works has added natural gas coverage and released an historical forward curve analytical tool that provides “a fast representation of historical forward curves via a visualization and interrogation tool.” The company is also talking with LME about expanding coverage at a future date into metals, I was told.
Sebastian is also very excited about a use for the solution in and around brokers that will allow trusted traders to view broker price curves. “We aren’t quite there yet but the technology is,” he told me. This is a feature that Artis Works is currently working on and expects to complete in the future. “It will work on trader’s phones and other devices too so that they can ‘listen’ all the time to branded broker curves,” he said.
The concept fits well with the solution’s objectives for Artis Folio. “It is a bespoke solution allowing audited real-time data sharing across entire organisations, culminating in a user experience distilled from years of commodity trading. Artis Folio also has real-time multi exchange connections with optional Artis derived calculations, as well as a data delivery partnerships from different industry sources,”says the company’s website.
According to Sebastian, Artis Folio eliminates dependencies on market data vendors and unreliable Excel add-ins delivering data with no additional handling fees or site license needs and, by commoditizing each dataset into a curve, allows for a new dimension in reporting. It also supports auditability of actions by providing a complete audit trail of all user inputs. Delivered in the cloud, it takes Artis Works about an hour to enable the software for users and to have everything up and running. Sebastian described it as a unique and standalone product that delivers value to the front desk and across many other roles. We will check in with Artis Works again in a few months and see how things are going.
