HANOVER: Suresh Shankar is surrounded by big data, literally. The co-founder of Singapore-based Crayon Data, which has a development centre in Chennai, is greeting startup enthusiasts standing before a giant panorama graphic that manifests the largesse of big data culled from submarines and drones to the human brain. The 3,000 square metre floor-to-ceiling graphic at the Code_n pavilion in the Hannover Fairgrounds in Germany is visualized as a massive repository of human culture and activity.
Crayon Data, founded by two graduates from IIM-Calcutta in 2012, is one of the top 50 finalists shortlisted for the Code_n Awards in Europe’s largest technology showcase Cebit 2014. In its third edition, Code_n Awards is a platform for startups and innovators to identify business models devoted to intelligent and efficient ways to handle large volumes of data. The winner of Code_n, which stands for Code of the New, will receive prize money of 30,000 euros. The jury shortlisted 50 startups from 17 countries out of over 450 applications received from 60 countries.
Crayon Data, which recently raised Rs 7.3 crore from Singapore-based Jungle Ventures, has developed a big data platform that helps enterprises to connect their internal data with the unstructured data outside, including social media. Its SimplerChoices platform demonstrated at Cebit creates a taste graph for each customer based on their tastes, influence and context that can be used by banks, hotels, retailers and telecom companies to deliver personalized choices to their customers.
Crayon Data has raised a total of Rs 27 crore in funding from a clutch of investors including Meng Wong, co-founder of the Joyful Frog Digital Incubator, and William Bissell, managing director of Fabindia, and is now gearing for a bigger fund-raise. “We are planning to raise $10 million in the third or fourth quarter this year for expansion,” said Shankar.
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