Crayon Data backed by Ratan Tata, Gopalakrishnan to raise Series B fund

This news article was published by Business Standard on October 22.
Crayon Data, a big data analysis company in which veteran industrialist Ratan Tata and Infosys Co-Founder Kris Gopalakrishnan invested in, is planning to raise Series B round of funding to the tune of around $11 million from existing and new investors. The fund would be used for expansion in western markets, including in the US, and for technology development.
The company was founded in 2012 and provides big data analysis to banking, airline and hospitality businesses. It has become profitable in 2018 in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) and is cash positive. “We have achieved the growth that we promised to our investors. The next stage of growth requires investments into new areas, we want invest in sales and be big in the US, UK, Australia markets, in the western markets,” said Suresh Shankar, founder of the Singapore-based Crayon Data.
“We are going into a Series B fundraising and we are in reasonably late stage of that journey,” he said. The existing investors are keen to back with further investment and it is also talking to a few outside investors. The fund raising is expected to be completed by next quarter. The firm has raised $18 million so far, from investors including Tata, Gopalakrishnan, Jungle Ventures, Mitsui & Co, among others. Major part of the expansion would be into new countries and new verticals. It has strong presence in the West Asia and Asia Pacific regions. Apart from banking, airlines and hospitality, where it is present in, the firm looks to expand to telecom and retail sectors.
The company plans to invest into sales to grow over the next two to three years. Besides, the fund will be invested into partnerships like Microsoft, Visa and others. While it is catering to large customers now, it is also developing a standard platform for the mid-tier firms and this will be launched next year to sustain growth momentum, he added.