republican mega donor robert mercer partnered with british behavioral research company scl group. he financed $1.5 million pilot program led by scl elections director which would later become cambridge analytica. right around that time facebook allowed apps on its site to collect profile and friend list data with user permission. the practice stopped in mid 2014 but some apps were given a short grace period. in june, 2014 then scl employee christopher wylie found alexander hogan to develop an o app to deploy on facebook. that month robert mer se invested $15 million to formally create cambridge analytica along with breitbart chief and then mercer ally, you know the name,