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Tracxn Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a data analytics company that tracks start-ups, has secured funding from Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons Ltd, co-founder Abhishek Goyal said, without disclosing the amount.
The three-year-old company has in the past raised $3.7 million from Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal; Sahil Barua, co-founder of e-commerce logistics firm Delhivery; and venture capital firm SAIF Partners.
“We belong to a generation whose formative years were spent observing Mr Tata’s way of building companies. So, when we saw he was investing in start-ups, we reached out to him,” said Goyal.
Tata has invested in at least 20 home-grown start-ups, including online marketplace Snapdeal (Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd), digital wallet provider Paytm (One97 Communications Ltd), cab hailing service Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd) and online lingerie store Zivame (Actoserba Active Wholesale Pvt. Ltd) in the past 18 months.
Tracxn was started in 2013 by Goyal and Neha Singh, former venture capital investors at Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital, respectively. Goyal also ran online beauty products and fashion retailer Urban Touch from 2011 to 2013 until its sale to rival FashionAndYou.
Tracxn provides information on start-ups to over 6,000 clients across India, the US, the Middle East, South-East Asia and Europe, and claims to sign up at least one new client every day.
The company currently analyses start-ups in India, the US and South-East Asia and plans to expand its research to about 25 countries across the Middle East, Europe and Canada in 2016.
Besides start-ups that have attracted institutional investors, Tracxn also tracks unfunded start-ups, which, according to Goyal, far outnumber their funded counterparts.
“There are about 1 lakh funded companies. But there is a universe of about 1 million companies who are unfunded. We organize that information as well from whatever online footprint they leave,” said Goyal.
According to documents filed with the registrar of Companies, Tracxn posted revenue of Rs.2.31 crore for the year ended 31 March 2015, up from Rs.9.78 lakh in the previous year.
According to industry experts, as the number of start-ups continue to grow and excite investors, services around start-ups will also gain momentum.
“If we believe the start-up ecosystem is growing, services around start-ups will get the same level of traction. Tracxn is one such service,” said Harish H.V., partner at consultancy firm Grant Thornton India.
“An investor will want information about the portfolio before putting in money. Today, what is the source of information? Mostly discussions with other stakeholders. But Tracxn does a far more detailed analysis, furnished in a usable format, using technology and not fleet on street,” he added.
This article appeared in Live Mint on 06th January, 2016.