About Data Purl
Data Purl is an alternative data company that has served investors since 2018.
- Founded as an independent company in 2025 by the team behind the investor dataset widely known as WGSN.
- Converts public retailer and brand websites into standardized data on prices, discounts, availability and assortment across 400+ retailers.
- Resolves every brand to its owner, public or private.
Our history
Data Purl's core dataset launched to investors in 2018, when the team built an alternative dataset that became widely known in the market as WGSN. It grew inside Ascential, then Flywheel, then Omnicom; when Omnicom shifted its focus to serving brands rather than investors, the team spun out with the dataset in 2025 to found Data Purl, and has since built a great deal on top of it, including data from many more approved sources.
2018
Launched to investors
The team launches an alternative dataset for investors inside Ascential's incubator, widely known in the market as WGSN, and quickly builds a loyal core of hedge fund and institutional users.
2020
Ascential Alternative Data
Ascential creates a dedicated division to serve investment managers, working across its data assets to find signals for consumer-sector investors.
2022
Flywheel
Ascential's digital commerce businesses and the alternative data team come together as Flywheel, serving public-market investors and private-market deal teams.
Omnicom
Part of Omnicom
Omnicom acquires Flywheel and shifts its focus to serving brands rather than investors.
2025
Data Purl spins out
The team spins out with the dataset to found Data Purl as an independent company built for investors.
Today
Built on top
More data from many approved sources, one standardized category tree, brands resolved to their owners with listed owners mapped to tickers, and ready-built company and sector analytics.
If you knew this data as WGSN, you are in the right place. It is the same core dataset, the same team and the same rigour, with a great deal built on top: more data from many approved sources, history back to 2013 across 400+ retailers, one standardized category tree and brands mapped to their owners and tickers.
Our founders
James Griffiths
Co-founder and General Manager
James has led the investor-facing business behind the dataset since it began. He joined Ascential in 2018 as Commercial Director of its incubator, where the investor dataset was launched, then ran commercial for Ascential Alternative Data from 2020 and became General Manager of Flywheel Alternative Data in 2022, serving public-market investors and private-market teams on M&A and commercial due diligence.
Jeremy Scott
Co-founder and Director of Product & Research
Jeremy spent more than a decade as a sell-side equity analyst: an associate at Morgan Stanley, then a senior research analyst at CLSA covering restaurants and agribusiness, and at Mizuho covering restaurants, food and consumer internet.
He then led investor research at SimilarWeb from 2020, building its Stock Intelligence platform end to end, and joined Flywheel as Director of Product & Research for investors in 2024 before co-founding Data Purl with James in 2025.
What we do
Our mission is to give investors the most complete ground-truth view of consumer companies online. We collect public product listings several times a week and publish them weekly, then do the work that makes them usable for research: one category tree, brands resolved to owners, public and private, listed owners mapped to tickers with dated ownership changes, and continuous history.
Who we serve
- Hedge funds and long-only investors, fundamental and quantitative
- Sell-side research analysts
- Private equity deal and operating teams
- Strategy and commercial due diligence consultants
Where to find our data
Directly from Data Purl by Snowflake share, Amazon S3 or the analytics portal, or through partner platforms.
Name
Data Purl (data-purl.com) is the alternative data company described on this page. It is not affiliated with persistent URL (PURL) services or with other companies using the name Purl. Data Purl is independent and is not affiliated with WGSN today; WGSN is referred to here only to describe the history of the dataset.
Contact
- +44 20 8125 3010 (UK)
- +1 212-660-0780 (US / International)
See the data for your coverage
Start free in the analytics portal, or talk to the founders about the full dataset delivered to Snowflake or S3.