Fractal Analytics was born in 2000 in a small apartment on the outskirts of Mumbai, where six friends came together and set up the data analytics company. Five years later, they moved its headquarters to the US and went on to cater to large corporations like P&G, Colgate and Microsoft. Pranay Agrawal, cofounder of Fractal Analytics, talks about this incredible journey in an interview:
Q/ Why did you move to the US?
A/ It was clear that to create high impact from the work that we were doing, we needed to work with larger, mature companies. In search of that we came to the US. Today, about 70 per cent of our revenue comes from US companies, about 15-20 per cent comes from European companies and about 10-15 per cent comes from companies headquartered in Australia or Asia.
Q/ How were the initial years in the US?
A/ It was tough and slow. It is not as if we had a robust sales engine or that we were bringing a lot of market access. The first five years were very difficult but we won clients like P&G, SAP and Microsoft. And once we had five to seven clients, then it started gaining momentum. One of the first assignments from P&G back in 2005 was a one-week assignment for $2,000. Today, they are one of our top five clients. You have to keep showing up. I think that is a critical part in the journey.
Q/ You turned unicorn this year. What are the key areas that you intend to focus on?
A/ We are using the funding for a few big things. One of them is creating products under Fractal Alpha, where we have already incubated different companies. We have a lot of opportunity in the marketplace to bring products that are AI engineering relevant. The second big area is acquisition. In December we announced the acquisition of Neal Analytics. They are a Microsoft technology-based AI and engineering company. We also acquired Samya, which is a management and demand forecasting platform.
Q/ You were one of the early Indian startups to go to the US. What is your view of the startup ecosystem there?
A/ The ecosystem for creating new businesses and creating value is strong. There is a lot of talent that is wired to do this work. A bunch of other things like infrastructure are also robust. That helps. If you look at the places where a lot of startups happen in the US, it is an open environment where what matters is the quality of your idea and your solutions.