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SumZero is an investment community that that caters to the buyside with a social network structure. Since its inception in 2008, SumZero has grown to become the largest online community for hedge fund, mutual fund, and private equity professionals with nearly every well-known fund represented in the user base.

Founding
Co-founder and current CEO Divya Narendra conceptualized SumZero in April of 2007 while working for the hedge fund firm, Sowood Capital. SumZero was launched in March of 2008, six months after Sowood Capital was sold to Citadel LLC. It was realized from a lack of professional networking opportunities catering to the buyside; Narendra and college friend, Aalap Mahadevia, decided to begin what would become what he deems an “investment idea database structured within a social network dedicated to the buyside.”

Narendra described how he came up with the concept in an interview. "SumZero was initially inspired by a need for a simple, centralized, and searchable platform in which professional investors working at hedge funds, mutual funds, and private equity funds could share rigorous investment ideas and network with one another. Since then the concept has expanded and SumZero is taking steps to bring a subset of high-level investment research to the investing community at large."

Purpose
SumZero enables not only peer advisory, but provides "highly-differentiated investment research, the platform further enables members to build a track record, expand their networks in highly-relevant places, and identify further professional opportunities within the industry." As ideas are rated, the platform allows for effective feedback and network growth between buyside investors in "largest online community for hedge fund, mutual fund, and private equity professionals".

Membership
Membership is similar to the early exclusivity of Facebook where buyside investors are required to submit information, such as an investment thesis, prior to being approved. The site has over 8000 members; however approximately 75% of applicants to the site are regularly rejected. There exist several distinctions between membership and it is no longer limited solely to buy side investors.

Products
SumZero offers various levels of access to both buyside and non-buyside investors.

SumZero Basic
Basic membership is designed specifically for non-buyside investors and includes access to SumZero Headlines, job listings, special events, free research reports and more.

SumZero QTI
The Quarterly Top Idea is SumZero's new, entry-level premium service. It allows any investor the opportunity to access a select portion of top-tier, market-beating SumZero research. For a small, flat-fee, members can consume high-performing, buyside-driven research delivered regularly throughout the year via the QTI service. Sophisticated investors should sample this content first before moving to SumZero Elite.

SumZero Elite
Elite membership includes two New Alpha-Rich investment ideas each month, live discussions with top SumZero hedge fund managers, on-going coverage and analysis, and various other non-correlated opportunities. investment ideas have demonstrated dramatic out-performance. Long recommendations have beat their benchmark by 11%. Short recommendations have beat by nearly 7%.

SumZero Buyside
"Applicants must work at an investment fund. Hedge funds, mutual funds, private equity funds, and investment banking proprietary trading firms all qualify. By contributing one idea, a member gains six months of access to thousands of full-length, peer-rated investment write-ups and financial models. By sharing research, members naturally build a track record, essential to securing future jobs and potentially launching their own funds."

Compliance
SumZero maintains several regulations upon its users. Once approved, members gain access to submissions from the community; the site operates on a reciprocity based system, meaning that access is relative to the material submitted. The default submission is one investment pitch every six months for full access to the community submissions. The database contains write-ups with an average length of 2000 words each, and is divided into an Idea Database, Models Database, and Estimates Database.

SumZero forbids the release of non-public information amongst its members, as it is a peer based network designed to benefit its users by the sharing of ideas and discussion. As all advisory comes from other buyside professionals, it is not an expert network, and as such not a Registered Investment Advisor.

As a form of moderation, compliance officers are responsible to eradicate irrelevant or otherwise disallowed material that is in violation of the terms and conditions of membership. "SumZero has a designated SumZero Compliance Officer who is authorized to read every piece of investment content posted on SumZero and such Compliance Officer conducts periodic spot-checks of submissions (both randomly and in response to specific inquiries or tips) specifically to seek out potential inclusion of material, non-public information, unsubstantiated rumors, and other potential attempts at market manipulation."

Media
Since its inception in March 2008, SumZero has gained incredible exposure through featured stories in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CNBC, Bloomberg Television, Fox Business , Business Insider, Benzinga, Yahoo! Daily Ticker on several occasions.

The $1 million investment made by Winklevoss Capital in September 2012 was covered by The Wall Street Journal, NPR Marketplace , ABC News and Huffington Post among other media. The SumZero team also made an appearance on CNN with Soledad O'Brein.

Whitney Tilson and CEO Narendra appeared on CNBC to talk about the first Annual Investing Challenge, jointly organized by SumZero and Value Investing Congress in October 2012. The Challenge was covered by several news channels and business publications including Business Insider and Benzinga .The top 3 ideas were pitched on CNBC's Fast Money and the winner Ryan Fusaro presented his investment idea at the Value Investing Congress on October 1, 2012 alongside prominent portfolio managers such as Bill Ackman, David Einhorn and Barry Rosentein.

RAI News recently featured CEO Narendra's speech in the University of Rome in November 2012.

SumZero Community
SumZero is mainly "a venue for buy side professional investors to share their research and resources in an online, centralized sociable way". While most packages are exclusively available to high-end professional investors for purchase, SumZero's Basic option caters to hobbyist investors and offers limited access to the investment research database free of charge.

Members go through a selective application system before their investment research is added to the database. As stated on the SumZero website: "Applicants must work at an investment fund. Hedge funds, mutual funds, private equity funds, and investment banking proprietary trading firms all qualify. A small proportion of non-buyside candidates may be considered though an investment idea is required in this case."

The SumZero community includes many notable users such as Mohnish Pabrai, Jim Pallotta, Lisa Rapuano, Ken Shuben Stein, and Whitney Tilson. Members Ryan Fusaro, Manuel Stotz, and Matthew Peltz of the SumZero Community were recently listed in Forbes "30 Under 30". Member and activist investor Ryan Morris was profiled in BusinessWeek.