“We focus on deep, fundamental work to find truth where others see noise. LinqAlpha helps us challenge that truth – to question our assumptions and ensure our conviction is earned, not assumed.”
— Tom C, Managing Partner at Third Square Capital
About Third Square Capital
Third Square Capital Management is a Las Vegas-based investment firm focused on consumer-driven, long-term growth companies with a contrarian approach.
The firm’s edge lies in its willingness to go against prevailing narratives - identifying periods when public pessimism diverges from underlying business strength. Third Square’s approach combines deep fundamental analysis with behavioral insight to capture mispriced opportunities created by short-term market overreactions.
Its investment philosophy is grounded in disciplined patience: to invest where fundamentals are strong and improving but sentiment has turned negative, and to hold through volatility with research-backed conviction. As contrarian investors, Third Square believes great investments are found when markets turn pessimistic about companies still loved by their customers.
Opportunity
Contrarian investing requires more than courage - it requires cognitive clarity. The team at Third Square observed that the deeper they dug into a company, the more difficult it became to detach emotionally from their initial conclusions.
“We spend months analyzing a single company - and the more time we invest, the more invested we become mentally,” said Tom. “That hard work can sometimes narrow our perspective and make us more biased. The question became: how do we preserve intellectual honesty and objectivity while operating with conviction?”
The firm sought a way to systematically challenge its own investment theses to expose blind spots, reveal embedded biases, and accelerate access to credible dissenting views. Traditional research workflows - reading through hundreds of filings, transcripts, and expert interviews - were time-consuming and prone to confirmation bias.
Solution
Third Square adopted LinqAlpha’s Devil’s Advocate Agent as an AI-powered partner in its research process to strengthen research discipline and objectivity.
Devilʼs Advocate Agent analyzes uploaded investment theses and automatically surfaces counterarguments from company filings, expert call transcripts, and industry commentary. It challenges assumptions, highlights overlooked risks, and brings to light alternate perspectives.
“These agents act as thought partners,ˮ said Tom. “They donʼt just summarize data — they interrogate it. That helps us strip away bias and focus on truth, not conviction, which is essential to staying grounded as contrarian investors.
By embedding LinqAlpha into its research pipeline, Third Square can now turn qualitative insights into structured debates within hours, not weeks or months.
Impact
Integrating LinqAlpha has reshaped how Third Square validates and scales investment ideas.
Bias reduction has become a deliberate part of the research process — using AI-driven counterview analysis to identify blind spots and avoid overconfidence that can arise from deep familiarity with a name.
Productivity has improved markedly, enabling broader sector coverage without compromising analytical depth.
Idea generation now happens more frequently, powered by insights from hundreds of expert calls and filings that once took weeks to process.
Key Outcomes
5-6x faster turnaround on early-stage research and idea validation
AI-generated “counterview audit” step for all new ideas
Improved discipline in managing high-conviction positions through evidence-based challenge
Easier monitoring of evolving narratives around portfolio companies and maintenance of a continuous learning loop across research cycles
As of the end of September 2025, since Third Square Capital began using LinqAlpha in September 2024, the TSC Contrarian Fund has generated a net return of 52.5%, compared to the S&P 500’s 16% over the same 13-month period.