Jared Broad

“We brought an open-source approach to quantitative finance, a profoundly secretive industry,” says Jared Broad, of his firm QuantConnect, which is recognised as democratising access to the guarded world of algorithmic trading.

The humanitarian and entrepreneur graduated from the University of Auckland with a degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2007 and went on to forge a hugely successful career as a quant, that is a quantitative finance trader. 

A relatively new profession, quants are in high demand as their understanding of using algorithms to predict the markets can generate significant wealth. 

Quants are also famously secretive when it comes to their mathematical modelling.

But QuantConnect took a different approach when it launched nearly 10 years ago, by making its technology open-source, a concept that was met with great skepticism.

“We were rejected by more than 150 venture capitalists in one year,” says Jared.

Rejection, he adds, is a great motivator.

“It is easy to give in to the desire for comfort, but life is short it – why not give it everything you have to make it something magnificent.”

Unusually, prior to QuantConnect Jared spent most of his career doing humanitarian work overseas, rather than working in finance.

“After graduating, I saved and sold everything to pay off my student loans and left New Zealand to work on a cargo ship and explore the world with nothing but a backpack. I did humanitarian work for five years in some of the most hostile environments, including in Myanmar, Haiti, Chile and Turkey/Syria.”

When he turned his focus to quant finance, raising capital was more challenging than he first thought.

To overcome this, he spent six months building a prototype platform without seed funding alongside his aid work, before finally attracting significant angel investment. In 2014 QuantConnect raised an incredible US$9.9 million in seed funding.

That was in 2014 and since then QuantConnect has thrived. It has grown to 250,000 users worldwide, is used by the world's most significant funds, and in 2022 it was recognised as the world's best quantitative finance platform.

“Quantitative trading operates on the frontier of engineering and scientific fields, rapidly applying new technologies. I enjoy the constant daily challenges in working across multiple disciplines, but after spending so many years doing humanitarian work, my service to the community now is building our open-source projects.”

The fintech company continues its rapid growth.

“The cost and speed advantages of using our platform are approaching 10 to 50 times compared to building similar technology in-house. New start-ups in the industry are building on our platform and reaching the market in weeks compared to years.”

Jared is especially proud of QuantConnect’s engineering-focused culture, which he says carries over from his undergraduate days.

“I am grateful for my start at the Biomedical Engineering Institute where I was exposed to cutting-edge science.

“The University of Auckland surrounds you with other people looking to achieve big goals despite being far from the world's epicenter,” he says.

“And along the way, I was especially lucky to have found a loving, supportive wife and to have been blessed with two beautiful children.”