Fractal Analytics raises 667crore from Malaysian wealth fund Khazanah

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n a bid to accelerate its growth and invest in areas like artificial intelligence to snag Fortune 500 clients, data analytics company Fractal Analytics has raised $100 million (Rs 667 crore) from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, which is one of the largest investments in the technology ecosystem in 2016.

The clients count multi-nationals like Franklin Templeton Investments, P&G, Kimberly Clark, Microsoft and Philips as its clients. Fractal has over 13 offices, with major centers in Mumbai and San Francisco.

Srikanth Velamakanni, co-founder of Fractal Analytics, said, “There is a revolution underway in advanced analytics, deep learning and visual storytelling. Analytics as we define it may get transformed and the investment from Khazanah will help us invest further in our AI & deep learning-based software stack.”

Sources close to the development say, the investment will value the US and India-based company at close to $300 million (Rs 2,000 crore). Global revenue in the business intelligence and analytics is expected to reach $16.9 billion in 2016, an increase of 5.2% from 2015, according to the latest forecast from Gartner.

Fractal has raised $25 million from Boston-headquartered private equity firm TA Associates in 2013 followed by a stake purchase by Canada’s Aimia, one of world’s largest loyalty management firm in 2014. Fractal also counts Gulu Mirchandani, chairman of Onida Group and his son and venture capitalist Sasha Mirchandani as early investors.

Besides expansion and product development, the funding is also expected to be used for further acquisitions. Fractal’s last two acquisitions in 2015 have been Mobius Innovations, mobile-based context aware big data startup and Imagna Analytics, an artificial intelligence startup.

Fractal Analytics currently has five acquisitions in the pipeline that it is evaluating. “We will look to acquire companies for the IP that they bring in clients who we don’t have right now,” said Velamakanni, adding that it only looks to onboard clients who either have revenues of over $10 billion, market capitalization of over $20 billion or have over 30 million customers.