Founded in 2000, Fractal Analytics (FA) is today one of the leading players in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) space. Headquartered in New York, the company is a strategic analytics partner to the most admired Fortune 500 companies globally, and helps them power every human decision by bringing analytics and AI to the decision-making process. It is present in 16 locations including the US, the UK, Australia and India. FA, which has its regional headquarters in Mumbai, has consistently been rated as one of India’s best companies to work for by The Great Place to Work Institute. It is also featured as a leader in the Customer Analytics Service Providers Wave 2019 by Forrester Research and recognised as an ‘honourable vendor’ in the 2019 magic quadrant for data & analytics by Gartner. The Rs1,000-crore entity, serving more than 100 Fortune 500 companies with its AI, data and analytics-driven business strategies, has grown at a CAGR of 35 per cent in the last 10 years and is looking to grow at a CAGR of over 40 per cent, going ahead. The company, which has raised more than $300 million from institutional private equity investors, provides services and solutions in consumer-packaged goods, insurance, healthcare, life sciences, retail and technology, and the financial sector. Looking at the growing demand for its products and services during the pandemic, the company added over 700 people to its workforce, taking the total count to 2,100 people. Of these, 1,300 employees are based in India, where the company has offices in Bengaluru, Gurugram and Mumbai. Apart from helping businesses with its innovative AI data and analytics tools during the recent challenges, FA, through its one of the product lines (Qure.ai), deployed AI-powered pandemic response solutions for Covid-19 management. Qure.ai transforms how radiologists make diagnostic decisions. Qure’sqXR solution is the first AI-based chest x-ray interpretation tool to receive CE certification. qXR uses a combination of deep-learning models to detect common types of lung abnormalities. Trained on more than one million chest x-rays, qXR detects 15 of the most common chest x-ray abnormalities with an accuracy of more than 90 per cent. To retool it, FA worked with a panel of experts to review the latest medical literature and determine the typical features of Covid-induced pneumonia, such as opaque patches in the image that have a ‘ground glass’ pattern and dense regions on the sides of the lungs. FA-incubated Qure.ai raised $16 million in a funding round led by Sequoia India and MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia, the investment arm of US-based life insurer MassMutual. “Our tools and services help enterprises in their decision-making processes and significantly enhance their overall efficiency,” says Srikanth Velamakanni, 47, co-founder, group chief executive & vice-chairman, Fractal Analytics. “We consistently look to develop new products and platforms to help clients adopt and implement AI and analytics expediently. We also leverage best-in-class AI/ML-based solutions in their business process to realise large benefits.” As the Covid-19 pandemic presented an unprecedented challenge to governments and policy decision-makers worldwide, FA also envisioned a governance model to manage and contain Covid-19 in India and other parts of the world. “FA’s model is based on data-driven, decision-making outlines – the four pillars that analytics and AI can support. These pillars include managing the spread of the disease, managing healthcare outcomes, resuming the economy, and citizen engagement,” adds Velamakanni.
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Velamakanni: enhancing efficiency
