There’s an old saying: If you love something, set it free. And Wall Street firms, in the midst of their love affair with alternative data, are rushing to liberate some of the datasets and technologies that financial firms have raised in captivity, to take advantage of commercial opportunities for these tools.

In particular, the growth of alt data is prompting a new wave of startup data and analytics providers specializing in specific content niches. However, one of the largest, ready-made