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Sageworks is a private financial information company headquartered in
Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the List of North Carolina county seats, seat of Wake County, North Carolina, Wake County in the United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, second-most ...
. Founded in 1998, Sageworks provides financial analysis and risk management software, in addition to creating products for commercial lenders. It collects financial information on the private sector by aggregating data from large accounting firms. The company also publishes "private company indicator" reports, which analyze activity and profitability in certain market segments. The firm is a private business key executives include co-founder and chairman Brian Hamilton and CEO Scott Ogle.


History

Sageworks was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1998 by
serial entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
Brian Hamilton and
computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...
Sarah Tourville. The two met while Hamilton was teaching at
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
Continuing Studies in the early 1990s. Tourville, one of Hamilton's students, said she could program a financial analysis system after Hamilton said that no one has come up with a way to automate certain analyses. In the late 1990s Hamilton and Tourville spent two years developing software for what was to be known as Sageworks' Financial Information into Narrative Data (FIND), the technology behind its ProfitCents product. Initially the firm struggled to properly market its tools in the early 2000s.
CitiBank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City ...
and
Intuit Intuit Inc. is an American business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application Tu ...
were both early adopters. Sageworks has collected financial data since financial statement year 2001. By 2014, it included 2001-2011 data from nearly 240,000 private firms, including three or more consecutive years of financial data for each of 99,040. (full paper available in pre-publication form) It provides financial performance data on private companies based on their income statements and balance sheets. The data is provided by large accounting firms that work with private companies, then anonymized by labeling each company with a unique identifier number. Commercial users are given access to aggregated data by industry and region and not the financials of individual companies. Its data tends to comprise figures from large private firms; as of 2014, it contained data on almost 240,000 private companies. This compares to Sageworks' multi-year data from 2001 to 2011 of 4,360 public U.S. firms.Commercial users are given access to aggregated data by industry and region and not the financials of individual companies. Its data tends to comprise figures from large private firms; as of 2014, it contained data on almost 240,000 private companies. In January 2004, the company announced a deal to license to
LexisNexis LexisNexis is a part of the RELX corporation that sells data analytics products and various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper search, and consumer informa ...
its ProfitCents public product, which turns
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
data from public companies into plain-English text reports. In 2013, Scott Ogle became
chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
. In 2014, Sageworks launched its LoanSage product, a platform for small business owners to get loans of up to $2 million in one day. That same year, the company unveiled Sageworks Bank Information, a cloud-based platform providing data on banks and credit unions with data of 6,000 U.S. banks and 7,000 credit unions. The same year it launched its CFO platform, a suite of financial analysis tools for financial executives with financial analysis,
benchmarking Benchmarking is the practice of comparing business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and best practices from other companies. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. Benchmarking is used to measure performan ...
, valuation, and industry data, and Sageworks Bank Information, a cloud-based platform with bank and credit union data. In November 2016, the company launched a platform that helps lenders provide financing for small and medium-sized businesses. In June 2017, it released its CashSage product, for analyzing cash flow.


Uses

Sageworks' data has been used by academics to analyze economics using data from private companies, where traditionally only a very small data-set of about 4,000 public companies that publicly reported their data was available. According to a paper from researchers with
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...
and Harvard Business School, Sageworks' data is especially useful, because it is free of
survivor bias Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or "wrong moves," in the construction of an argument which may appear stronger than it really is if the fallacy is not spott ...
and other selection biases. Sageworks also uses data to create the "Sageworks Private Company Indicator", which shows private-company sales growth and profit margins. The firm also occasionally issues aggregate information about average profitability of private firms in various industries.


Acquisition

In 2018,
Accel-KKR Accel-KKR is an American technology-focused private equity firm with over $14 billion in total assets under management. The firm invests primarily in middle-market software and technology-enabled services businesses, providing capital for buyo ...
acquired Sageworks for an undisclosed amount and became part of the Banker's Toolbox suite of products. In 2019, Banker's Toolbox sunset the Sageworks brand and re-branded themselves as Abrigo.


Inmates to Entrepreneurs

Sageworks and its co-founder, Hamilton, started a program calle
Inmates to Entrepreneurs
in 2008. The program encourages prison inmates to start their own business. P The program is based on Hamilton's small business seminar, focusing on marketing, sales, customer service, accounting, finance and staffing. Participants make informal business plans and are paired with mentors.


Notes


References

{{Reflist, 30em


External links


Sageworks Official Site
Companies based in Raleigh, North Carolina Financial services companies established in 1998 Financial services companies of the United States