Ascential Alternative Data Division was started by Jeremy Baksht, who used to be Bloomberg's global head of alternative data. The London-based company helps consumer companies, like clothing lines, understand everything from their brand to their customers to their price points. The new division will focus on selling the datasets already created for the firm's primary clients to hedge funds and private-equity managers, while also building up a data-science and analysis team to create new data products. "Most hedge funds and financial services clients are not trying to do a bottoms-up, fundamental prediction of revenue from alternative data.