How they describe themselves: ChartMechanic lets users easily combine their own data with a broad library of public domain financial data, from sources like the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or stock/bond prices. ChartMechanic loads data from a variety of sources, such as Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Google Docs spreadsheets, or even HTML tables on the web. Common financial functions are built in, like adjusting for inflation or year-over-year/month-over-month changes. ChartMechanic lets users compose highly customized charts, and the data is continuously updated, making the charts suitable for financial dashboard and reporting applications.

What they think makes them better: Established financial data vendors offer very high-priced products, requiring special terminals, and often are not easily accessible to their users. ChartMechanic offers an easy-to-use data and charting service, with an intuitive web interface, at a much lower price.

Executives: Dave Brown (Founder), Jolly Chen (Founder)

Customers: Peterson Holding is the Caterpillar franchise for Northern California. Their Six Sigma group uses ChartMechanic to run a business intelligence dashboard tracking key metrics of their operations. ChartMechanic aggregates and updates their operational data from a jumble of backend sources, primarly Excel spreadsheets.

Contacts: Biz Dev and Sales: Jolly Chen, Founder, jolly@bayareasoftware.com, 510-551-7577
Press: Dave Brown, Founder, dave@bayareasoftware.com, 415-509-2239