Voloridge Investment Management

Voloridge's founder was discovered through a coding contest, not a trading desk. David Vogel surfaced in the Netflix Prize machine-learning competition, which led Jaffray Woodriff of Quantitative Investment Management to recruit him into systematic investing in 2007; QIM went on to take a 25% stake in the firm Vogel founded in 2009.

The firm applies data science, machine learning, and mathematical modelling to systematic multi-strategy trading across global markets. It runs all of this from Jupiter, a beach town in Palm Beach County, rather than New York or Chicago, and has been steadily expanding its footprint there.