SIDBI invests $2.4 million first round in Pragmatix

Enterprise analytics start-up Pragmatix has raised its first round of institutional funding from SIDBI Venture Capital. Mosiac Capital was the “Exclusive Financial Advisor to Pragmatix.

Pragmatix, which is in its 4^th full-year of business, provides actionable intelligence through data models and products which solve specific business problems.

Unlike typical analytics service companies, Pragmatix delivers its solution through a proprietary product platform, Vital Analytix. At the back of which ride specific data models (currently 18 and counting) to address different functional and business problems across financial services, telecom and retailing.

Pragmatix was set-up by four co-founders (Alok Rastogi, V Dinesh, Ashish Vora and Ramesh Lakshminarayanan) who held CxO level positions in various Banks in India. On Day 1 of Pragmatix, they started with over 80 years of experience in almost every facet of the financial services industry.

“SIDBI is the right partner for our future” says Ashish Vora, Director and co-founder, referring to the deep and wide portfolio that SIDBI has in the financial and analytics ecosystem including retail analytics company Manthan.

Anant Sarma, CEO SIDBI Venture Capital said: “We’re delighted to partner with the seasoned founders of Pragmatix. They aspire to build a globally competitive business and we intend to be with them every step of the way”. The investment of Rs 15 Crore (approximately US $2.4 million) was made from SIDBI’s sector-agnostic India Opportunities Fund (IOF).

Both sides declined to comment on the valuation, but Sarma from SIDBI adds that “The valuation is respectful of the credentials of the founders, the intellectual property they’ve built, the traction that Pragmatix has and will have in future and the global horizons ahead of it”

Pragmatix already has a foot-print in the North American and UAE market, with one Director based full-time in Palo Alto. Their marquee customers include names like Vodafone India, RBL Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Citibank North America and EMEA, First Gulf Bank, reflecting multiple sectors in multiple geographies.

“We selected Pragmatix to implement its Business Intelligence and Reporting system (Vital Analytix) to aid our Sales team in their day to day Information, Reporting and Decisioning needs. We are now in the 3rd year of adoption and we have satisfied with performance of Vital Analytix”, says the CEO of a Client, which has been a user of Pragmatix services for the last 3 years. “Our business challenge was complex, our standards exacting and our review process stringent. However, Pragmatix has exceeded our expectations on all these fronts” – says the CXO of another client.

Pragmatix intends to use the funds to build new data models, invest in platform development and drive expansion into newer geographies. They believe they have a unique proposition that takes them ahead of competitors, even globally.

A recent report from McKinsey Getting Big Impact from Big Data (January 2015) cites that “…an emerging class of analytics specialists build models targeted to specific use cases…These models have a clear business focus and can be implemented swiftly… Getting analytics out of the exclusive hands of the statistic gurus, and into the hands of the broad base of frontline users, is seen as a key building block for scale”.

Happily enough, the report underlines the very approach that Pragmatix has taken, which is to build data models for specific use cases.

Adds Ramesh Lakshminarayanan: “Our edge is to configure a solution customized for each client. But based on modular, IP-centered data models and software blocks. Therefore dramatically cutting-down time required for deployment”

Pragmatix is based in Mumbai and currently has a team-size of 80, which they expect to scale rapidly in the next 6 months.