Fractal has raised $360 million from TPG in a new financing round and entered the unicorn club as the Mumbai and San Francisco-headquartered AI startup, which counts Google and Wells Fargo among its customers, scales its offerings and begins preparation for an IPO.
The new financing round valued the 21-year-old startup “at well north of $1 billion,” said Srikanth Velamakanni, co-founder and group chief executive at Fractal, in an interview with TechCrunch. TPG invested in the startup through its TPG Capital Asia, its Asia-focused private equity platform. The new round, which brings the startup’s all-time raise to about $685 million, involves some secondary share purchase as well.
Fractal Analytics provides artificial intelligence and analytics solutions to scores of Fortune 100 firms. (A typical customer of Fractal generates at least $10 billion in revenue.) The startup’s offerings include Qure.ai, which assists radiologists in making better diagnostic decisions. Theremin.ai helps firms improve investment decisions; Eugenie.ai assists in finding anomalies in high-velocity data; Samya.ai is fuelling next-generation enterprise revenue growth management, and Senseforth.ai helps automate customer interactions at scale to grow top-line and bottom-line.
“We solve every human problem in the enterprise,” said Velamakanni.
“Our clients are all looking to digitize their businesses and offer more personalized solutions to their customers,” he said. A telecom operator, for instance, works with Fractal to remove friction that customers face in signing up for a multi-year contract. Consumer goods giant P&G last year launched a new product called “Secret,” an underarm perspirant that it formulated using AI, for which it publicly acknowledged Fractal’s contribution.
“We also work with them on areas such as improving efficiencies, productivity, supply chain planning and forecasting. This is becoming more and more crucial to firms, especially amid the pandemic,” he said.
The startup, which employs over 3,500 individuals globally, also helps its clients with decision-making actions, Velamakanni said. “Many companies have developed expertise on their product and engineering sides. But on the commercial front, they need some assistance,” he said.
Fractal also incubates and invests in AI projects, he explained.
“We continue to see great momentum in how clients are leveraging AI to accelerate digital transformation. Fractal is building a great workplace and an innovative culture that’s driving significant client outcomes through our ‘user focused, decision-backwards’ approach to solving problems,” he said.
“TPG’s capabilities across all our markets and their proven success in building and supporting top AI providers is the perfect complement to the partnership we’ve enjoyed with Apax, whose insight and expertise have been instrumental in accelerating our growth.”
The startup said it serves over 100 of the top 500 companies in the world and generates over $100 million in annual revenue. It’s started to prepare for an initial public offering, but Velamakanni declined to share exactly when it will make the move.
“We would like to become a public company sooner than later. How soon? That I won’t be able to share at this point of time. But certainly, we have scale, size, maturity and governance of a public company,” he said.
“In the growing market for data and analytics services, Fractal continues to stand out as one of the most well-established, differentiated providers and a clear leader in AI and advanced analytics,” said Puneet Bhatia, Co-Managing Partner of TPG Capital Asia, in a statement.
“The quality of Fractal’s offering has enabled them to build a deep and loyal client -base, made up of some of the world’s largest and most respected companies. Srikanth and Pranay have built a highly respected and market leading company, and we are excited to partner with this proven management team to continue to enhance Fractal’s organic and strategic growth.”
