With mountains of data to sift through, it can be difficult for businesses to determine when things are changing or going wrong, such as a subscription service that slowly and randomly starts losing users or a SaaS company that fails to gain traction in certain regions.
In an effort to lessen the load on humans, one Denver startup is leveraging AI to help businesses find answers to an elusive question - "Why?"
After working on the product for the last 18 months, Denver's Nodin is prepared to launch its AI-driven analytics platform in April.
The company, previously named Appli, has developed a SaaS-based platform that provides clear, automated business insights about what is happening in a business, why it is happening and what to do next.
"Most analytics platforms only highlight what has already happened, with virtually no insight into WHY something happened. In contrast, Nodin's platform explains why things are happening in your business at the pace your business is moving," said Jeff Allen, CEO of Nodin said in a release. "Once you understand why something happened, you can make better decisions about what to do to optimize results."
In preparation for the launch, Nodin announced a $5 million funding round that included participation from institutional investors, including Liberty Global Ventures and the Anschutz Ventures Group.
Nodin's AI platform provides businesses with answers to why things change, by delving deep into datasets that often overwhelm humans.
"Tell me when things and patterns change. When you see those, go to the root cause and tell me why they change," Allen said of Nodin's platform.
“Just knowing what changed we think doesn’t go far enough,” he added.
The platform has two main user personas, a business analyst and an executive, or decision-maker. In both cases, Nodin shows what is happening to the business, why it's happening and how to fix it.
Allen said the funding would be primarily put towards product development and building out the company's staff.
The platform will launch in April, 18 months after the company first formed. Allen said it has been tested and refined through pilot projects with several prominent companies in the U.S. and Europe.
"Nodin delivers business insights in ways that help companies make decisions faster and with greater confidence," said Bruce Dines, Partner at Liberty Global Ventures, which conducted a pilot project with the company. "Nodin is the first analytics platform (among many that we have reviewed) that allows decision-makers to understand why changes are happening and simulate the impact of potential decisions before taking action. This is imperative for growing revenue, driving operational efficiencies and increasing profitability."
A recent story on Gartner Inc's top 2019 data trend in the Wall Street Journal validated Nodin's model, calling augmented analytics, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to better develop, consume and share data, the number one analytics trend.
Augmented analytics “will be a dominant driver of new purchases of analytics and business intelligence” by 2020, Gartner said in the WSJ story. It advised corporate data and analytics leaders to “plan to adopt augmented analytics as platform capabilities mature.”
The 12-person company, located at 555 17th St. in Denver is hiring and hopes to grow the team to 16 by the summer.
As they approach product launch, Allen told Colorado Inno that the team will focus on gaining traction in the market before going back out for funding towards the end of 2020.
"Our path forward is really clear, get the product out and go get traction," he said.
