Our Story

Shared passion for pattern recognition and a desire to approach investing through a quantitative, research-based approach

Octant was founded by David Holley and Michael Thornton. Upon meeting, they soon learned of their shared passion for pattern recognition and their desire to approach investments through a quantitative, research-based approach. Both David and Michael have extensive experience in the investment industry and often found company presentations and investment manager presentations lacking the analytical rigor they desired. Often, these presentations felt like ‘story time’ – “Let me tell you about this great investment I made,” or “Let me tell you about my great decisions – ‘I bought this company with unappreciated strengths and sold it a few years later for 300% my original investment,’” etc. While engaging and often entertaining, it left the question – was the decision based on skill or luck? Is that even repeatable? How would purchasing companies based on those metrics perform historically? David and Michael hoped to provide something based more on research and less on intuition; something based on what had repeatedly worked across historical time periods and less on gut feel.

Years after initially meeting and based on their shared approach and philosophy toward investing, the founders formed Octant. Shortly thereafter, they began working with investors to execute their quantitative, systematic, research-based investment strategies. Octant has grown and now uses quantitative insights and a systematic approach in an effort to improve their investing across the following silos and investment objectives: return maximization, low-correlation/diversifiers, risk mitigating/drawdown control, and bespoke, custom solutions.