Indicium, a startup from Florianópolis focused on data consultancy services, has just closed a Series A with the American data management company venture capital Columbia Capital that could reach US$40 million.
It is the first investment in Brazil by the American manager founded in 1989. The contribution will be made through its Fund 7, a US$600 million vehicle.
According to CEO Matheus Dellagnelo, a former two-time Pan-American champion sailor, what will determine the value of the contribution are “performance triggers, time and the company’s needs.” The company did not disclose the value of the initial contribution.
Indicium’s main objective is to grow in the American market, which already represents 30% of its revenue of R$32 million last year. The goal is to double in size this year.
Founded in 2017, Indicium came about when the founders saw a cover of The Economist that stated that “the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data”.
In addition to Dellagnelo, the founding team is made up of brothers Vitor and Daniel Avancini and Isabela Blasi.
The path chosen by the founders was to create a scalable business based on services, and not on the development of a product – which caused the company to receive criticism at the time, says Dellagnelo.
The founders realized that there was no point in thinking about creating a new technology if not even those that were already on the market were well used by companies.
From there, they reached the Modern Data Stack (MDS) – a “modern data stack”.
It is a methodology that allows you to manage and analyze large volumes of data more efficiently.
To achieve this, there is a path to be pursued: data collection, integration and storage, followed by business intelligence It is analytics and finally, machine learning.
To put it simply: Indicium created a way to centralize all customer data, run artificial intelligence models and thus arrive at a personalized recommendation model – similar to what companies like Netflix and Spotify offer.
“We call the methodology internally ‘analytics on steroids’,” said Isabela. “We are not tied to one tool or another, as every year there is a hype different and we need to offer these solutions.”
With this speech, Indicium began to compete with Big Four consultancies and managed to attract companies such as Pepsico, Bayer, Burger King and Volvo.
According to the CEO, the company is looking for clients with revenues above R$1 billion in Brazil and US$1 billion in the United States.
To meet demand, Indicium must increase the number of employees from 250 to 320 this year. Part of these hires will come from an internal training program.
According to Isabela, the company realized that current courses on the topic of data were far behind what Indicium was looking for. Therefore, the company trains 60 people per year – in-house.
André Jankavski
