Oxford DataPlan

KYCO: Know Your Company

Reveal Profile

8 May 2026

Executive Summary

Profile

UK-incorporated alternative data provider targeting institutional investors; Oxford Data Plan Ltd is a private limited company formed under the Companies Act 2006, operating under SIC code 62020 (IT consultancy). Founded in October 2022 as a collaboration between industry professionals and Oxford University researchers, the company converts proprietary multi-source datasets — including consumer receipt panels, transaction data, web-scraped signals, and location intelligence — into daily KPI estimates and forward-looking signals for hedge funds, asset managers, and institutional investors globally.

Scale & Footprint

Raised approximately $8.44 million in a Series A round (March 2025); cumulative P&L deficit of £675,818 at 30 June 2024; total net assets of £472,482 at the same date; no external debt facilities on record
Fewer than 10 employees per FY2024 statutory accounts; company representations state over 75 professionals as of May 2026
Operations: London, United Kingdom; Service Coverage: clients across the US, UK, and South Korea; data partnerships and tracked companies spanning global listed equity markets

What You Should Know

Early-stage but institutionally validated: Client penetration into several of the top five global hedge funds and reference in JP Morgan Equity Research before three years of operating history signals product credibility disproportionate to the firm’s scale and age.
Financial opacity is the primary due diligence constraint: No profit and loss statement is publicly available; FY2025 accounts are overdue as of May 2026; all financials are unaudited; burn rate, revenue, and runway cannot be independently assessed.
Governance is structurally thin: A two-director board — founder-CEO and a single investor-appointed director — operates under quorum rules requiring both directors, creating a governance structure that is inoperable if either is unavailable.
Accounting restatement on record: A £144,263 downward restatement of retained earnings attributed to the initial accounting team reduces the reliability of pre-FY2024 comparative figures.

Ownership & Governance

Privately held; Josef Schmalfuss is the sole PSC, holding 75–100% of shares and voting rights; Smedvig Ventures 2 LP is the lead Series A investor with minority equity, joined by TX Ventures and a distributed set of named co-investors across 48 recorded shareholdings
Two-director board: Josef Schmalfuss (Founder and CEO, since incorporation) and Joseph William Knowles (Smedvig Ventures representative, appointed March 2025); no board committees disclosed; no company secretary appointed

Business Environment

Positioned as a boutique specialist within the alternative data market, differentiated from large incumbents (Bloomberg, FactSet, S&P Global) by deeply modelled daily KPI estimation across 222 live companies; competes with peers including Second Measure and Earnest Analytics
Continuous platform expansion since inception, including new sector launches, FactSet data integration (March 2026), and appointment of a US Sales Director (October 2025), indicating active commercial build-out
Series A capital (March 2025) supports growth; post-round headcount expansion and ongoing product cadence indicate a company at an early operational inflection point

Key Strengths

Academic research foundation: Founding collaboration with Oxford University faculty and alumni, combined with machine learning researchers drawn from leading universities, embeds methodological rigour that is difficult to replicate and credible to institutional procurement processes.
Publicly disclosed model accuracy: Sub-1% error rates published across multiple covered equities represent a form of market accountability that differentiates the firm from peers that do not publish comparable benchmarks.
Institutional client base at highest tier: Serving several of the top five global hedge funds and cited in JP Morgan Equity Research provides a reputational barrier to displacement that materially supports client retention and further acquisition.

Specific Risk

Founder key-person and governance concentration (Critical): Schmalfuss holds 75–100% voting control, is sole PSC, and resides in the UAE; the two-director board requires both directors for quorum; no succession plan, key-man insurance, or independent committee structure has been disclosed.
Unaudited financials and overdue FY2025 accounts (High): All statutory accounts are unaudited under section 477 exemption; FY2025 accounts were due 31 March 2026 and remain unfiled; revenue, margins, and burn rate are unavailable from public records.
Burn rate and runway uncertainty (High): Pre-profitability with cumulative losses of £675,818 at June 2024; headcount reportedly expanded from fewer than 10 to over 75; cash consumption since the Series A cannot be independently assessed.
Director loan and related-party risk (High): An unsecured, interest-free, on-demand director loan from Schmalfuss representing approximately 26% of net assets at June 2024 has not been independently verified and carries contingent liquidity exposure.
Unidentified business combination (Moderate): Goodwill of £75,140 at June 2024 relates to an undisclosed acquisition; the acquired entity, consideration, and any associated contingent liabilities are not identified in filed accounts or public records.

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1) Overview of the Company

Oxford Data Plan Ltd is a private limited company incorporated in England and Wales on 12 October 2022 and headquartered in London, United Kingdom. The company operates under SIC code 62020 (IT consultancy activities) and has a fiscal year-end of 30 June, with its most recent statutory accounts covering the period from 1 January 2024 to 30 June 2024. The company has claimed audit exemption under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006; its accountants are Menzies LLP. No charges are registered against the company.

Oxford Data Plan operates as an alternative data provider, tracking revenue and other key performance indicators daily for over 250 listed companies globally. The company’s core value proposition is the conversion of complex, proprietary datasets into actionable, forward-looking signals to support investment decision-making, describing itself as a ‘Home of Alternative Data’ platform. Per company representations, its data sources encompass consumer receipt data via a Global Receipt Panel, transaction data across the US, UK, and South Korea, web-collected data including scraping and tech stack analysis, advertising intelligence and app data, and location-based datasets covering points of interest, flight data, and cruise data. The platform tracks over 500 distinct KPIs and offers real-time data visualization, analytics, deep sector analyses, forecasts, and backtesting datasets through flexible subscription bundles. Covered sectors include Digital Advertising, Food Delivery, Fashion and Apparel, Classifieds, Real Estate, Hospitality, Software, Fintech, Retail and Consumer Services, Travel and Tourism, and Outdoor Advertising, among others.

The company’s client base is oriented predominantly toward institutional investors. Per company representations, clients collectively hold over $250 billion in assets under management, and the firm serves several of the top five global hedge funds. The company also states that its data tracking work has been featured in more than ten JP Morgan Equity Research reports. Per company representations, the firm was founded as a collaboration between industry professionals and Oxford University researchers, including lecturers and alumni, and employs machine learning researchers drawn from Oxford and other universities. The team spans over 20 nationalities.

Per the FY2024 annual accounts, the average monthly headcount, including directors, was fewer than 10 employees (8 for the period ended 30 June 2024, compared to 5 for the period ended 31 December 2023). Per company representations on its website as of May 2026, the team has grown to over 75 professionals. The company closed a Series A funding round led by Smedvig Ventures, with participation from TX Ventures, as reflected in Companies House filings dated 31 March 2025. Josef Schmalfuss has served as director since incorporation and is the sole Person with Significant Control per the Companies House register. Joseph William Knowles, whose correspondence address is listed as Smedvig Ventures, was appointed as a second director on 31 March 2025, representing the sole board addition in the past 24 months per the statutory register.

The company is not registered with the SEC as a Registered Investment Adviser or Exempt Reporting Adviser. An appointed Head of Compliance serves as the company’s Data Protection Officer, per its privacy policy.

2) History

Oxford Data Plan Ltd was incorporated in England and Wales on 12 October 2022, with Josef Schmalfuss appointed as the founding director on that date. Per company representations, the firm was established as a collaboration between industry professionals and Oxford University researchers, including faculty and alumni, positioning itself from inception as an academically grounded alternative data provider for institutional investment decision-making.

The company’s early operational period through its initial fiscal year (to 31 December 2023) saw foundational capital activity, including a share sub-division filed on 21 March 2023, followed by successive share allotments in April and May 2023. The company also relocated its registered office from its original Paul Street address to 124 Finchley Road, London, in May 2023. The average monthly headcount (including directors) during this inaugural period was 5. A further share allotment was completed in April 2024, and an additional allotment in May 2024 brought the ordinary share capital to a stated nominal value of £1.1458, reflecting ongoing equity issuances consistent with early-stage growth financing.

A material structural milestone occurred on 31 March 2025, when the company completed its Series A funding round, led by Smedvig Ventures with participation from TX Ventures. Per PitchBook data, which has not been independently verified through primary disclosure, the round raised approximately $8.44 million. This event coincided with the adoption of bespoke Articles of Association replacing the model articles previously in effect, the introduction of Series A Shares with preferential capital rights, and the appointment of Joseph William Knowles — whose correspondence address is listed as Smedvig Ventures — as a second director. The Series A round also triggered transfer restrictions on the founder’s equity for a period of three years from the date of adoption, and established formal investor consent rights over reserved matters. A further allotment was completed in September 2025, increasing the total share capital to a nominal value of £1.4079 across 11,644 ordinary shares and 2,435 Series A Shares.

The company relocated its registered office again in November 2025, moving from 124 Finchley Road to its current address at 128 City Road, London. That same month, a change of particulars was filed for director Josef Schmalfuss. The most recent confirmation statement, dated 8 November 2025, records 48 individual shareholdings, reflecting the breadth of the post-Series A investor base.

A notable technical development occurred in March 2026, when the company integrated FactSet data into its platform under specific FactSet Data Terms, and updated its Terms and Conditions accordingly. This integration expanded the scope of data available to subscribers. Separately, in March 2026, the company launched Docusign Total Customer Revenue signals, extended its tracked universe to 222 live companies and 19 Sector Insights, and added new KPIs for Shopify and Tesla, underscoring continued platform expansion. Bill Wildi was promoted to Chief Technology Officer, as reported in connection with the Series A announcement period.

The goodwill balance of £75,140 on the 30 June 2024 balance sheet — at a cost of £88,400 less accumulated amortisation — indicates that the company undertook at least one business combination prior to that date, though the acquired entity has not been identified in filed accounts. Prior period accounting errors identified during the FY2024 period required restatement of the comparative December 2023 figures, attributed to the initial accounting team.

3) Key Executives

Josef Schmalfuss is the Founder and CEO of Oxford Data Plan Ltd, having been appointed as the sole founding director on 12 October 2022. He is a German national currently resident in the United Arab Emirates. He leads a team described as comprising machine learning researchers drawn from Oxford and other universities and spanning over 20 nationalities, and announced the company’s Series A funding round via corporate social media in connection with the milestone.

Joseph William Knowles was appointed as a director on 31 March 2025, concurrent with the completion of the Series A funding round led by Smedvig Ventures. A British national resident in England, his correspondence address is listed as Smedvig Ventures, London, indicating he serves in a board capacity representing the lead Series A investor. Knowles was born in October 1987 and has served as a director for approximately 14 months as of the current date.

Bill Wildi serves as Chief Technology Officer of Oxford Data Plan. Per a LinkedIn post by Wildi himself, he was promoted to the CTO role and has been with the company since its earliest stage of operations, described as “day zero” — prior to the firm having clients or products. He played a role in the company’s Series A financing process and was explicitly acknowledged by CEO Josef Schmalfuss for his leadership in achieving that milestone. Wildi continues to represent the company publicly, including in a May 2026 webinar on tracking TSMC using the firm’s proprietary data infrastructure.

Makay Redd holds the title of Head of Product Intelligence at Oxford Data Plan, with his role confirmed across the company’s own website. He leads the firm’s product intelligence function, including the launch of semiconductor sector coverage and daily KPI tracking initiatives. In May 2026, Redd co-presented a company webinar on semiconductor sector analysis alongside CTO Bill Wildi.

Hugo Soares has served as Director of Product and Operations since January 2025, having previously held the role of Director of Strategic Accounts at Oxford Data Plan from 2024 to January 2025. He holds an MBA from The Lisbon MBA — Católica | Nova (2015) and is fluent in Portuguese and English.

Lewis Upton serves as Commercial Director at Oxford Data Plan, a role he has held since 2023. He has represented the company at industry events, including Future Alpha 2026.

4) Ownership

Oxford Data Plan Ltd is a privately held company with no parent company and no recorded subsidiaries. Josef Schmalfuss remains the sole Person with Significant Control (PSC) per the Companies House register, holding 75–100% of shares and voting rights, with the right to appoint and remove directors, as notified on 12 October 2022.

Following the Series A funding round, the investor base expanded materially. The most recent confirmation statement, dated 8 November 2025, records 48 individual shareholdings, reflecting the breadth of the post-Series A capital structure. Named legal entity shareholders appearing in the statutory register include SMEDVIG VENTURES 2 LP (the lead Series A investor), TX VENTURES FINTAGE FUND I, ALSP21 L.L.C., FUND II, A SERIES OF EXPLORER 34 FUND LP, VENTURES TOGETHER LLP, OXDP-ULY HOLDINGS LLC, BERUNDOR PTY LIMITED, and LEFMAN CONSULTING AB, alongside Josef Schmalfuss as an individual. Smedvig Ventures and TX Ventures hold minority stakes; no specific percentage holdings for these investors have been disclosed in primary filings.

The company’s share capital comprises two equity classes — Ordinary Shares and Series A Shares — plus a non-voting Deferred Share class. As of the September 2025 allotment, the total capital structure consists of 11,644 Ordinary Shares and 2,435 Series A Shares, with a combined nominal value of £1.4079. Series A Shares carry preferential rights on a return of capital and are convertible into Ordinary Shares upon a qualifying IPO or by investor majority consent. Deferred Shares carry no voting, dividend, or substantive economic rights. The company also maintains an Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) scheme, with 624 options in issue as of 30 June 2024, of which 399 were vested.

The board comprises two statutory directors per the Companies House register. Josef Schmalfuss was appointed at incorporation on 12 October 2022 and serves as Founder and CEO. Joseph William Knowles, a British national whose correspondence address is listed as Smedvig Ventures, was appointed on 31 March 2025 concurrent with the Series A closing. No company secretary has been appointed.

The Articles of Association, adopted by special resolution on 31 March 2025, impose a maximum board size of three directors unless varied by ordinary resolution with Investor Director Consent. The Founder retains the right to appoint himself and one additional natural person as Founder Directors, provided the Founder and permitted transferees hold at least 10% of Equity Shares. Smedvig retains the right to appoint an Investor Director for so long as it holds at least 5% of Equity Shares. Board quorum requires the presence of both the Investor Director and at least one Founder Director. The Articles further establish investor consent rights over reserved matters and impose transfer restrictions on the Founder’s equity shares for a period of three years from the date of adoption (31 March 2025). Drag-along and tag-along provisions are also embedded in the Articles. No board committees have been disclosed in available filings, consistent with the company’s early-stage scale and audit-exempt status.

5) Financial Position

The company has claimed audit exemption under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006. The financial data below is drawn from unaudited statutory accounts and has not been subject to independent verification.

Oxford Data Plan Ltd’s statutory accounts for the period ended 30 June 2024, prepared under FRS 102 Section 1A, provide the most recent filed financial position. No profit and loss statement was filed, as the company exercised its small company exemption from filing this document; accordingly, revenue, gross margin, and operating loss figures are not available from public records. The accumulated profit and loss account deficit stood at £675,818 as at 30 June 2024, compared to a restated deficit of £461,088 as at 31 December 2023 — an increase in cumulative losses of approximately £214,730 over the six-month period. The restatement of the prior period comparatives, arising from errors in recognition and presentation under the initial accounting team, introduced a £144,263 downward adjustment to retained earnings brought forward, reducing the reliability of unadjusted historical comparisons.

The balance sheet position improved materially between the two periods. Total current assets rose from £209,807 (restated, 31 December 2023) to £944,010 as at 30 June 2024, driven primarily by a near-fivefold increase in cash at bank and in hand, from £115,446 to £579,102. Trade debtors increased from £53,500 to £104,699, consistent with growing subscription billings. Total current liabilities rose from £352,364 to £546,668 over the same period, reflecting growth in accruals, deferred income, and other creditors. The current ratio improved from approximately 0.60 to approximately 1.73, representing a shift from a net current liability position to a net current asset position. This improvement is attributable to the equity capital raised in the period, as reflected in the share premium account of £1,146,299. Total net assets were £472,482 at 30 June 2024, compared to net liabilities of £62,997 at the prior period end.

The sole fixed asset on the balance sheet is goodwill of £75,140 (cost £88,400 less accumulated amortisation of £13,260), arising from an unidentified business combination completed prior to 30 June 2024. Amortisation of £4,420 was charged in the period; no impairment has been recorded. No tangible fixed assets are reported, and no external debt facilities or registered charges exist against the company.

A related-party balance of £121,012 due to the director — unsecured, interest-free, and repayable on demand — was outstanding at 30 June 2024, unchanged from the prior period end. This balance represents a governance-relevant liability given its on-demand repayment terms.

The accounts for the period ended 30 June 2025 were due by 31 March 2026 per the Companies House filing record; as of the current date (May 2026), those accounts have not been filed, and they are overdue. This delinquency limits visibility into the company’s financial position following the Series A funding round. The disclosed capital base from that round, together with the share premium balance already on the June 2024 balance sheet, represents the primary source of liquidity for the company’s operational expenditure. No bank loans, overdraft facilities, or third-party debt instruments are disclosed in the filed accounts or the charges register.

6) Market Position

Oxford Data Plan operates within the alternative data industry, a segment of financial data services that supplies non-traditional, signal-generating datasets to institutional investors. The firm’s positioning as a boutique, specialist provider differentiates it from both large-scale financial data incumbents and adjacent alternative data peers.

The competitive landscape includes large multinational data providers such as Bloomberg, FactSet (with whom Oxford Data Plan has a data integration relationship), Refinitiv (LSEG), and S&P Global Market Intelligence, which offer broad financial data suites but typically do not specialise in daily KPI estimation models for specific listed equities. At the specialist boutique level, per industry databases, similar firms operating in the alternative data analytics space include Second Measure, Earnest Analytics, Similarweb, Apptopia, and Sensor Tower — all of which offer proprietary consumer or digital signal datasets targeting institutional investment clients. Oxford Data Plan’s service mix — combining consumer receipt panels, transaction data, web scraping, tech stack analysis, and advertising intelligence to produce daily revenue estimates across over 250 companies — is narrower in breadth than the large incumbents but more deeply modelled than most point-solution data vendors.

The global alternative data market is a relevant sizing context. Per independent industry research, the alternative data market was valued at multiple billions of dollars and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in the range of approximately 50–55% through the late 2020s, though specific dollar values and CAGR figures vary across research providers and have not been independently verified against a single named primary research report available in the current source set.

Oxford Data Plan’s client base is oriented predominantly toward institutional investors, including hedge funds and asset managers. Per Bloomberg, the company serves hedge funds and asset managers worldwide. Per PitchBook data, which has not been independently verified through primary disclosure, private equity firms are also identified as a target customer segment. Geographic client reach spans at least London, where the company is headquartered, and the United States, evidenced by the appointment of a US Sales Director based in New York since October 2025.

The platform’s technology infrastructure is built on a web-based dashboard, Amazon S3, and API delivery, with data products updated daily. Per company representations, the platform utilises proprietary analytical models, methodologies, and statistical techniques. A notable data partnership formalised in March 2026 integrates FactSet UK Limited data into the platform under licensed terms, expanding the breadth of signals available to subscribers. Access is governed by a Subscription Service Agreement, and flexible bundle structures allow clients to select specific datasets. The company generates over one million daily KPI estimates, per company representations.

Model accuracy is a differentiating factor Oxford Data Plan highlights publicly. Third-party published performance metrics include a 0.20% error rate on monday.com’s Q4 2025 revenue estimate ($334.55 million estimated versus $333.88 million reported), a 0.22% error rate on American Airlines passenger revenue, a 0.30% error rate on HubSpot global customers in Q4 2025 (289,580 estimated versus 288,700 reported), a -0.46% error rate on Spotify US revenue in Q4 2025, and a 0.6% error rate on Dunelm Q3 2026 revenue. These metrics are drawn from company social media and third-party aggregators and have not been independently audited.

Platform coverage has expanded continuously: product launches through late 2025 and into 2026 include trackers for Braze (December 2025), Roblox Bookings and DAU (December 2025), Coursera (November 2025), Norwegian Cruise Line (January 2026), Dutch Bros Coffee (February 2026), and a Tapestry brand net sales product (April 2026), alongside new KPIs for Shopify and Tesla. The company also participated in industry events including BattleFin Miami (January 2026), Future Alpha 2026, and sponsored the Quant Strats Europe conference, indicating active market presence within the institutional alternative data community.

The primary competitive limitation is scale. With a team described as over 75 professionals per company representations — against industry databases suggesting a lower range — Oxford Data Plan remains a small-scale participant relative to established data incumbents. Coverage is concentrated in specific sectors and geographies, and the company currently tracks 222 live companies (as of March 2026), a universe materially smaller than multi-product incumbents. Absence of audited financials and a filed profit and loss statement further limits the ability of prospective clients or counterparties to independently assess financial stability relative to peers.

7) Legal Claims and Actions

Based on available public records and regulatory filings, no material legal claims, litigation, regulatory enforcement actions, or criminal proceedings involving Oxford Data Plan Ltd, its subsidiaries, or key executives have been identified.

The statutory accounts for the period ended 30 June 2024, filed at Companies House under the total exemption (small company) regime, disclose no contingent liabilities, no pending legal claims, and no events after the balance sheet date relating to legal proceedings. No emphasis of matter paragraph was issued, as the company is exempt from audit under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 and no audit was conducted. The charges register confirms that no charges are, or have been, registered against the company, indicating the absence of secured creditor enforcement activity.

Oxford Data Plan is a UK-incorporated IT consultancy and data analytics provider regulated under the Companies Act 2006 and subject to UK data protection legislation, with its compliance function overseen by an appointed Head of Compliance serving concurrently as Data Protection Officer. No public record of regulatory sanctions, disciplinary measures, or enforcement actions by UK authorities — including the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Financial Conduct Authority, or Companies House — has been identified in available records.

No employment-related litigation, discrimination cases, or workplace retaliation allegations involving the firm have been identified in available records. Similarly, no criminal convictions or professional licensing disciplinary actions involving current or former executives during their tenure at Oxford Data Plan have been documented. The two statutory directors — Josef Schmalfuss and Joseph William Knowles — show no record of regulatory or criminal proceedings in available public sources.

Given the firm’s early-stage profile (incorporated October 2022), its small company scale, and the absence of any disclosed contingent liabilities in its statutory accounts, the cumulative regulatory penalty total across both the five-year and ten-year look-back periods is nil. No pattern of enforcement, escalating compliance risk, or systemic violation trend has been identified. There are no bankruptcy filings, financial distress events, or investor disputes on record. The absence of audited financials, while a governance consideration addressed in prior sections, does not itself constitute a legal or regulatory violation under the applicable small company exemption.

8) Recent Media Coverage

Media coverage of Oxford Data Plan Ltd has been limited in volume, consistent with its profile as a small, early-stage private company. The available coverage is primarily concentrated in specialist alternative data and quantitative investment publications, with no identifiable presence in mainstream financial press, business media, or regulatory publications.

The most substantive recent coverage appeared in May 2025 via an industry-focused alternative data newsletter, which reported on both the Series A capital raise and Bill Wildi’s promotion to Chief Technology Officer. The tone was positive, framing the capital raise as a marker of market confidence and the leadership development as a signal of internal organizational maturity. Coverage was limited to a single outlet within the specialist data industry newsletter category, with no follow-up reporting identified in financial press or broader business media. The absence of wider press pickup is consistent with the company’s private status and the modest scale of the round relative to larger venture transactions that typically attract financial press attention.

Platform expansion activity received brief, positive coverage within the alternative data community. BattleFin, an industry-specific publication focused on the alternative data sector, highlighted Oxford Data Plan’s July 2025 product updates — including the addition of new ticker coverage and KPI expansions — in its monthly data round-up format. This type of coverage is routine within the alternative data industry, representing informational trade press reporting rather than feature-level editorial attention. The framing was factual and neutral-to-positive, with no critical commentary.

The company’s sponsorship of the Quant Strats Europe conference generated industry visibility within the quantitative investment community, though no standalone media coverage of the sponsorship has been identified beyond the conference’s own promotional materials. Such sponsorships are typically noted in event directories rather than generating independent press coverage.

In aggregate, Oxford Data Plan’s media profile remains nascent and narrowly concentrated in specialist alternative data and quantitative investment trade channels. No negative coverage, investigative reporting, regulatory commentary, or reputational controversy has been identified in available media sources across any outlet category. Given the company’s size, private status, and the absence of any legal or enforcement events documented in Section 7, the limited media footprint is consistent with expectations for a firm at this stage of development.

9) Strengths

Academic and Research-Grounded Founding Model

Oxford Data Plan’s founding structure — explicitly built as a collaboration between industry professionals and Oxford University researchers, including faculty and alumni — creates a differentiated intellectual foundation relative to conventional data startups. The employment of machine learning researchers drawn from Oxford and other universities embeds academic rigour into model development. This origin is difficult to replicate organically and provides credibility with institutional clients who evaluate the methodological integrity of data signals.

Demonstrated Model Accuracy Across Covered Equities

The firm publicly discloses granular point-estimate accuracy metrics across multiple equities, with error rates consistently below 1% across a range of sectors and company types. While these metrics are unaudited, their public disclosure represents a form of accountability that reinforces confidence in the underlying methodology and distinguishes the firm from peers who do not publish comparable accuracy benchmarks.

Institutional Client Validation at the Highest Tier

Penetration into the highest tier of the institutional market — including several of the top five global hedge funds and reference in JP Morgan Equity Research — before a decade of operating history signals a level of product credibility that provides both commercial validation and a defensible reference base for further client acquisition. This depth of institutional endorsement creates reputational barriers to displacement that are difficult for newer entrants to replicate.

Multi-Source Proprietary Data Architecture

The platform’s multi-layer data ingestion architecture — spanning receipt panels, transaction data, web scraping, advertising intelligence, app data, and location signals — creates a product that is structurally harder to displace than single-source data offerings. The breadth of integrated signal types increases the friction of substitution for clients who rely on the combined dataset, strengthening retention dynamics relative to point-solution competitors.

FactSet Data Integration Expanding Platform Breadth

The formalisation of a data integration with FactSet — one of the largest financial data incumbents globally — in March 2026 signals a degree of counterparty credibility validation for a firm of Oxford Data Plan’s scale. The integration materially broadens the signal set available to subscribers without requiring proportional internal build-out, enhancing the platform’s competitive position relative to standalone boutique peers.

Venture Backing from an Institutional Lead Investor

The Series A round led by Smedvig Ventures, with a diverse set of named institutional and strategic co-investors, provides more than capital: the governance framework embedded in bespoke Articles of Association reflects institutional oversight standards consistent with venture-backed growth companies. The breadth of the post-Series A cap table indicates a distributed investor network that can support commercial and operational development across multiple geographies.

Clean Legal and Regulatory Record

No enforcement actions, regulatory sanctions, legal proceedings, or contingent liabilities have been identified across any jurisdiction, and the charges register records no secured creditor claims against the company. For a data provider serving institutional clients — who conduct their own vendor due diligence — a clean compliance record reduces a common procurement barrier, particularly relative to peers operating in jurisdictions with less transparent public filing regimes.

Early-Stage Operating History with Continuous Platform Expansion

Despite fewer than four years of operation, the company has demonstrated a consistent product release cadence — expanding tracked coverage, launching discrete product lines, and entering new sectors — that is disproportionate to its headcount and age. This execution velocity supports the narrative of an operationally active organisation at an early inflection point, and provides evidence of delivery capability that institutional clients can reference when assessing vendor reliability.

10) Potential Risks and Areas for Further Due Diligence

Founder Controlling Equity and Key Person Dependency Risk

Severity: Critical. Josef Schmalfuss holds 75–100% of shares and voting rights as the sole PSC, is the founding CEO, and resides in the UAE — a combination that creates extreme governance and operational concentration. His departure, incapacity, or loss of decision-making authority would expose the company to existential disruption given the absence of a disclosed succession plan, second executive director, or independent board committee structure. The three-year transfer restriction on his equity (expiring March 2028) constrains liquidity options but does not mitigate continuity risk. The two-director board — Schmalfuss and the Smedvig-appointed investor director — creates a structurally thin governance layer that would be inoperable if either director were unavailable, given that board quorum requires both. Due diligence should request documentation of any succession plan, key-man insurance policy, and contingency operating protocols in the event of Schmalfuss’s unavailability.

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Unaudited Financial Statements and Overdue FY2025 Accounts

Severity: High. The company claims audit exemption under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006, meaning all financial disclosures are unaudited. The FY2025 statutory accounts (due 31 March 2026) remain unfiled as of May 2026, over six weeks past the filing deadline. This delinquency eliminates visibility into the company’s current financial position following the Series A round and a period of significant headcount expansion — representing materially elevated cash consumption. The absence of a filed profit and loss statement means revenue, margins, and operating loss remain unavailable from public records. Combined, audit exemption and filing delinquency prevent independent assessment of solvency, burn rate, or runway. Due diligence must request current management accounts, board-approved financial statements for the period to 30 June 2025, a cash burn and runway schedule, and a written explanation for the filing delay.

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Director Loan and Related Party Transaction Risk

Severity: High. A related-party balance due to director Josef Schmalfuss — unsecured, interest-free, and repayable on demand — was outstanding at 30 June 2024 and was unchanged from the prior period end. This balance represents approximately 26% of total net assets at the same date, creating a contingent liquidity risk that is material relative to the company’s scale. The absence of audit oversight means the terms and ongoing status of this balance have not been independently verified. Due diligence should obtain current confirmation of the balance, its repayment terms, and whether it has been settled or converted using Series A proceeds; obtain board minutes approving the transaction; and assess whether arm’s-length dealing standards were applied.

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Financial Viability and Burn Rate Uncertainty

Severity: High. The company is pre-profitability, with cumulative losses increasing by approximately £214,730 over the six-month period to 30 June 2024. With no revenue figures available from public records, no external debt facilities, and a headcount that has expanded significantly since the FY2024 period, the company’s cash consumption in the period since June 2024 is unknown but likely substantial. The Series A proceeds represent the primary liquidity source, and runway adequacy cannot be assessed from available data. Due diligence should request a detailed cash flow projection, confirmation of the current cash balance, a breakdown of monthly operating expenditure post-Series A, and revenue run-rate data to assess the path to operational self-sufficiency.

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Accounting Restatement and Historical Financial Reliability

Severity: Moderate. Prior period accounting errors identified during the FY2024 period required restatement of the December 2023 comparative figures, with a £144,263 downward adjustment to retained earnings attributed to the initial accounting team. This restatement undermines the reliability of pre-FY2024 financial data and raises questions about the robustness of the financial control environment during the company’s formation period. The replacement of the initial accounting team with Menzies LLP mitigates prospective risk, but the period prior to that transition has not been subject to audit. Due diligence should inquire whether any further adjustments were identified during the preparation of FY2025 accounts and request a written summary of the accounting errors, their root cause, and the remediation steps implemented.

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Unidentified Business Combination and Goodwill Opacity

Severity: Moderate. The balance sheet at 30 June 2024 records goodwill arising from an unidentified business combination completed prior to that date. Neither the acquired entity, the acquisition consideration, the date of completion, nor any contingent liabilities associated with the transaction are disclosed in the filed accounts or available public records. Goodwill of this nature — without identifiable underlying assets or disclosed transaction terms — limits the ability to assess recoverability. No impairment has been recorded, but no independent impairment review has been conducted given audit exemption. Due diligence should request disclosure of the acquired entity, the full acquisition agreement, and the basis for the goodwill valuation and amortisation policy.

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Regulatory and Data Privacy Compliance Risk

Severity: Moderate. Oxford Data Plan processes consumer receipt data, transaction data across three jurisdictions (US, UK, South Korea), web-scraped data, app and advertising intelligence, and location-based datasets — a multi-source data architecture with significant exposure to UK GDPR, the EU data protection framework, and potentially CCPA and Korean PIPA depending on data provenance. The Head of Compliance serves concurrently as Data Protection Officer, representing a single point of oversight for both functions. No independent data protection audit, ICO registration confirmation, or third-party compliance certification has been identified in available records. Due diligence should verify ICO registration status, request a data processing register and cross-border transfer documentation, confirm compliance with each applicable jurisdiction’s consent and data minimisation requirements, and assess whether the combined Compliance/DPO role creates structural capacity constraints.

Sources

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