Big Investors Are Getting Behind A Startup That Connects Users With Wall Street's Elite

The brain behind Capital IQ, the financial database service that was sold to McGraw Hill in 2004 for over $200 million, has a new product for Wall Street, Deal Book reports.

Capital IQ co-founder Neal Goldman has created a new company called Relationship Science that acts like a 6 degrees of separation for Wall Street's elite. It costs $3,000 a year to get a subscription, and some major investors are loving the idea.

From Dealbook:

Here’s how it works: Let’s say a banker wants to get in touch with Mr. Kravis, the private equity deal maker, but doesn’t know him personally. The banker can type Mr. Kravis’s name into a Relationship Science search bar, and the system will scan personal contacts for people the banker knows who also know Mr. Kravis, or perhaps secondary or tertiary connections...

Kenneth Langone, a financier and co-founder in Home Depot, said that when he saw a demonstration of the system he nearly fell off his chair. He used an unprintable four-letter word.

“My life is all about networking,” said Mr. Langone, who was so enthusiastic he became an investor and recently joined the board of Relationship Science. “How many times do I say, ‘How do I get to this guy?’ It is scary how much it helps.”

Henry R. Kravis, Ronald O. Perelman, Joseph R. Perella, Stanley F. Druckenmiller and Andrew Tisch have joined Langone in supporting the project financially.

It is, after all, about who you know.

Read the full piece at Dealbook>