Today we’d like to introduce you to Jake Drew.
Hi Jake, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have always been fascinated by finding patterns in complex information. That curiosity led me into a career in data mining long before the term “data scientist” became commonplace. For more than fifteen years, I developed predictive models and analytical systems in the banking industry before earning a Ph.D. in Computer Science. I later spent many years teaching machine learning and artificial intelligence at Southern Methodist University while also working as an expert witness explaining complex technical issues in intellectual property cases.
Outside of academia, I spent years researching quantitative investment strategies that used SEC filings as one of their primary inputs. I kept running into the same problem: the information was public, but turning thousands of pages of filings into timely, trustworthy intelligence was extraordinarily difficult. Eventually, I stopped asking how to improve my own research process and started asking how to solve that problem for everyone. That question became Apriori Financial.
Today, Apriori Financial builds AI that doesn’t just summarize information—it investigates it. Our flagship product, Apriori Terminal, analyzes SEC filings in real time and allows users to ask questions about public companies while tracing every conclusion directly back to the underlying filing evidence. The same technology powers a public research library containing more than 7,600 institutional-quality filing reports. With the exception of the most recent reports, the library is freely available because I believe high-quality financial research should be accessible to everyone, not just large institutions.
Looking back, each stage of my career contributed something essential. Banking taught me how to extract meaningful signals from massive datasets. Academia taught me how to explain complex ideas clearly. Expert witness work reinforced the importance of evidence and defensible conclusions. Years of quantitative research exposed a problem that traditional tools couldn’t solve. Apriori is where those experiences came together, and I’m excited to continue building technology that helps investors make better-informed decisions.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Building Apriori has definitely not been a smooth road. Creating an AI company around proprietary technology is expensive, especially when you’re developing the core systems yourself rather than assembling existing services. There are years of research and development behind the product, significant infrastructure costs, and constant decisions about where to invest limited resources.
Many startups address those challenges by raising venture capital early. I chose a different path. Apriori has been entirely self-funded, which has required patience and a willingness to invest my own time and resources over many years. The advantage is that I’ve been able to focus on building technology that solves a real problem for investors rather than optimizing for the next funding round.
Along the way, I’ve also built a growing patent portfolio around many of the company’s core innovations because I believe the long-term value is in creating genuinely new technology. There were certainly times when it would have been easier to simplify the vision or pursue quicker wins, but I believed the larger opportunity was worth the effort.
Looking back, I don’t regret that decision. Today, Apriori analyzes SEC filings in real time and powers a public research library containing thousands of institutional-quality reports, most of which are freely available. Seeing something grow from an idea into technology that people can actually use has made the challenges worthwhile.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about https://apriori.financial/?
Apriori Financial develops AI designed specifically for understanding public companies through their SEC filings. Our flagship product, Apriori Terminal, is an agentic research platform that investigates corporate disclosures in real time, helping investors answer complex questions while tracing every conclusion directly back to the underlying filing evidence.
What makes Apriori different is that it isn’t a general-purpose chatbot. Before a user asks a single question, the system has already spent years building a living research record for each company. We call this an **Apriori Arc**—a continuously evolving knowledge record that connects every filing, finding, trend, and unresolved question over time. Rather than starting from a blank prompt, the AI begins with years of structured understanding and then extends that knowledge by investigating the latest filings and supporting evidence.
Behind the scenes, Apriori has indexed more than 350 million sentences from over 25 terabytes of SEC filings and related disclosures covering public companies back to 2019. Each filing is processed through dozens of specialized analytical pipelines, allowing the platform to investigate accounting changes, insider activity, financial trends, disclosure patterns, and other signals before synthesizing an evidence-based answer.
Every conclusion is backed by the filing passages that support it. If the evidence isn’t there, the system doesn’t invent an answer. That commitment to evidence is central to everything we build.
In addition to the terminal, the same technology powers a public research library containing thousands of institutional-quality filing reports. Most of those reports become freely available after a short period because I believe high-quality financial research should be accessible to everyone—not just large financial institutions.
What I’m most proud of is that we didn’t simply build another AI assistant. We built a specialist: one designed from the ground up to understand SEC filings, maintain institutional memory across years of disclosures, and provide research that investors can verify for themselves.
What matters most to you? Why?
Authenticity matters most to me. I believe people can usually tell when someone is genuinely trying to solve a problem versus simply trying to sell something. I’ve always tried to be honest about what my technology can do, where the evidence comes from, and what questions remain unanswered.
I also care deeply about helping others. Whether I was teaching university students, serving as an expert witness, or building Apriori, I’ve always enjoyed taking something complicated and making it understandable and useful. That’s one of the reasons most of our research reports are freely available—I believe knowledge becomes more valuable when more people can benefit from it.
Finally, I hope to leave the world a little better than I found it. If I can build technology that helps people make better decisions, teaches them something new, or simply saves them time while remaining grounded in evidence, then I feel I’ve made a meaningful contribution. At the end of the day, that’s far more important to me than simply building another software company.
Pricing:
- Free Research Library: Thousands of institutional-quality SEC filing reports are available free at Apriori Financial. New reports become freely accessible after a short exclusivity period.
- Apriori Terminal: Subscription-based access to our real-time agentic AI research platform. Pricing varies by plan and usage. Readers can visit apriori.financial for current plans and availability.
- Mission: We believe high-quality, evidence-based financial research should be accessible to individual investors, not just large financial institutions
Contact Info:
- Website: https://apriori.financial/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakedrew/
- Other: https://jakemdrew.com/
