Sparta x Databento London: building API-first infrastructure and rethinking GTM

On June 20, 2025, we co-hosted an intimate lunch session in London with Sparta Commodities, bringing together a group of industry participants for a candid fireside chat on the future of data infrastructure in the financial markets.

The session featured Christina Qi (Databento) and Moody Sultan (Sparta), covering a range of topics, including the growth of API-first products, go-to-market strategies in a post-COVID environment, and the challenges of scaling startups in our unique industry.

Thank you to everyone who joined this collaborative, thoughtful, and refreshingly honest conversation. Below are some of the topics we covered.

The conversation opened with a look at how API-first products are reshaping access to market data across the financial industry. Topics included:

• The shift from terminal-based to API-based products;
• The rise of open source tools and open source communities, as well as bottom-up, self-service access to quant trading tools and market data; and
• Building with post-COVID user expectations in mind.

Attendees also discussed go-to-market strategies and organizational trade-offs in startup environments. Key areas of conversation included:

• The enormous challenge of "selling" to quants, engineers, and traders — some of the smartest and most skeptical people in the world, who hate being "sold" to;
• Trends like product-led growth (PLG) vs. sales-led growth (SLG);
• Remote vs. in-person vs. hybrid: scaling teams globally in a post-COVID context; and
• What it's like being a two-time founder: what's easier the second time around, and what challenges still remain today.

Attendees shared takeaways from the event:

• "Losers compete. Winners collaborate." — There is room for all of us in this industry. When we collaborate, things get built faster and smarter.
• "Lean isn't always better." — In startup-land, the common tactic is to build a scrappy MVP and launch it before it's ready. But when you're selling to financial institutions, you can't get away with a bad product. Successful startups in the financial services industry often take years to get to launch.
• "Data is bought, not sold." — Market data purchases are typically triggered by immediate business needs, not by traditional sales cycles.

We’re grateful to Sparta Commodities for co-hosting this session and to everyone who attended for contributing to a thoughtful and interactive discussion.

Let’s keep building together — and stay connected on LinkedIn.