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After a long stint of close to two decades in the US, Mr Rajan Madhavan decided to return to India and head InfoArmy, a start up initiative that is into creating ‘competitive intelligence reports for every strategically significant company' (in the US).
Mr Madhavan, a co-founder of this venture, joined hands with US serial entrepreneur Mr Jim Fowler, founder and Chief Executive, to launch InfoArmy. The company has established its presence in Coimbatore.
Headquartered in San Mateo, California, InfoArmy was founded in 2011 with Mr Jim Fowler investing $ 1 million in this venture. “Initially, we raised $2 million in venture funding, $1 million each from Jim Fowler and an angel investor. We are planning to raise the second round of funding by the end of this year,” Mr Madhavan told Business Line .
The Coimbatore team, numbering 10, is at present engaged in creating such competitive intelligence reports for companies in the US. “It is in the take off stage and we are looking to hire freshers, any one who is enthused to be a part of InfoArmy,” the co-founder of the company said.
“We have set for ourselves a target of creating 1000 reports by July and ten times that number shortly thereafter. Each report is built by a team of two researchers,” he said
“They don't have to be management grads or Chartered Accountants, for it is not about analysing the data, though, there will be some estimations. We collect the raw data, use it in a standardised and structured format that include products, people, customers, financials, statistics and so on to create estimates on the companies and their competitive eco-systems,” Mr Madhavan added. The Competitive Intelligence Report, viewable on the iPad is sold for a price. “InfoArmy will split the revenue from the sale of reports 50/50 with the researchers who create them. These reports are sure to become a go-to source for competitor and market insight.”
To create the report, the company would use ‘crowdsourcing' model, similar to the one developed and used at Jigsaw, an earlier venture, which has since been acquired by salesforce.com for $175 million, said Mr Madhavan.
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