(Bloomberg) -- Carlyle Group Inc. is investing up to $475 million in YipitData, a New York-based firm that gathers and analyzes alternative data for Wall Street and corporate clients.

The investment values the company at more than $1 billion. Backing from Carlyle will help it acquire new data sets and hire more analysts, according to YipitData’s Chief Executive Officer Vinicius Vacanti.

“The world has become more digital and there’s so much more data being created,” he said in an interview. “There’s nobody helping investors and companies understand what’s happening with all of that change.”

Vacanti co-founded Yipit in 2010 to help consumers find the best offers from Groupon Inc. and similar companies. The startup used its data to publish research, attracting stock-market investors aiming to understand an emerging corner of online sales.

By 2013, the startup had renamed itself YipitData and shifted its focus to analyzing information from a variety of sources, including websites, app data and email receipts. It now sells research to investors focused on ride-sharing, payments, online real estate and other industries that create troves of data. Its current roster of more than 400 clients includes investment funds and corporations.

For Carlyle, another recent deal offers a potential parallel for YipitData. The investment firm backed ZoomInfo Technologies Inc. in 2018, then helped it carry out a key acquisition, court new customers and expand internationally, leading to an initial public offering. Carlyle could help Vacanti’s firm in similar ways, said Anna Tye, a managing director specializing in technology at the firm.

"This is an opportunity to partner with an incredibly strong founder-CEO in a market that’s growing really quickly, with a company that we think is best in class," said Tye. "As data is proliferating throughout the world, we’re seeing increasing desire from investors and corporations to use alternative data in their decision-making."

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