Controversial media analyst Rich Greenfield has joined four former BTIG colleagues to create LightShed Partners, a telecom, media and technology research firm that will provide clients research and analytical information on public and private companies in the space.
Greenfield will be joined in the new venture by former BTIG technology analyst Walter Piecyk and former BTIG media analyst Brandon Ross, former BTIG telecom analyst Joseph Galone and former BTIG VP of media and tech equity research Mark Kelley. Together the partners have more than 20 years of TMT research experience and have worked together for more than a decade.
Greenfield has been a media analyst for quite awhile himself, covering the space for Goldman Sachs for eight years before moving on to Fulcrum Research in 2003 and Pali Research in 2007. He joined BTIG in 2010. At BTIG, Greenfield has been a big proponent of streaming media and the continued dismantling of an antiquated programming model.
Greenfield had said that he and Piecyk would split from BTIG to start their own firm in July. At the same time, BTIG said it would collaborate with the new firm “on a variety of important strategic initiatives.”
According to a press release, LightShed will initially offer tiered, subscription research for institutional investors like its first client, venture capital giant KKR.
LightShed added that it has also struck a strategic relationship with KKR, a long-time TMT investor that has deployed $26 billion in TMT transactions since 1983. KKR will work closely with LightShed’s founders as they build their research platform for TMT investors globally.
“LightShed is the culmination of our team’s decades of work analyzing the tectonic shifts in TMT, from the earliest stage startups to publicly-traded industry behemoths. We have always pushed boundaries in our research and this new enterprise will allow us to be even more creative in helping our clients identify trends ahead of the broader market,” Greenfield said in a press release.
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At launch, LightShed also offers its subscribers and corporate clients a library of historical analysis going back to 2006 via its website www.lightshedtmt.com.
“The LightShed team pioneered the blog format for institutional research and will continue to innovate research techniques and mediums, both to educate our clients and to interact with the key TMT industry executives,” Piecyk said in a press release. “While others are busy mailing PDF’s, we will be seeking to leverage popular, user friendly modes of communication, multimedia and new web technologies to push the LightShed platform even further and provide differentiated content to our clients.”
LightShed said it will also provide premium subscribers with opportunities and special events that give them the ability to engage with executives and thought leaders in the industry.
“In our experience, nothing is more valuable to investors than sitting face-to-face with industry executives to understand how they think about their business and the rapidly evolving TMT industry landscape, whether it be a legacy industry giant, an established disruptor or a pre-seed startup,” said Ross said in a press release.
