- Veridion (formerly Soleadify), a Romanian AI startup specializing in business data, raises $6M from a group of investors including LAUNCHub Ventures, OTB Ventures, Underline Ventures, Day One Capital, and GapMinder Venture Partners.
- The company will use the investment to expand across the US by establishing a New York office in 2023. Cytowski & Partners, a US-based law firm, advised the company during the funding round.
- Veridion’s decision to change its name reflects the company’s dedication to being a reliable, authoritative source of information, and its bold vision for expansion in the coming years.
The news of the investment comes after a year in which the AI-powered business data startup, experienced high growth. The company saw a 3x increase in recurring revenue and achieved a zero client churn rate.
“We believe that the next generation of business decision engines regardless of industry or vertical will require a completely new format of data. Predictive models will rely on AI more than human intuition and will be capable of processing exponentially more data as their core resource. For this, the data needs to be fresh, granular, easy to work with, and integrateable across a wide array of processes. This has been our focus from the beginning and with this round, we’ll be able to double down on our approach,” Florin Tufan, founder and CEO of Veridion, shares.
Veridion’s proprietary AI technology is specifically designed to analyze the global business landscape. The company develops business process automation APIs and products, built on top of AI-curated profiles for 80 million small and medium businesses worldwide, updated every week. This enables their clients, which include top-tier consultancies and market intelligence firms, to save thousands of hours of manual research and achieve record accuracy and refresh rates.
The technology behind Veridion’s platform is based on highly granular data, powerful APIs with confidence score controls, and internal matching engine.
Business data reimagined
“We started Veridion (formerly Soleadify) to build AI technologies that analyze the entire internet to gain as much insight as possible about companies worldwide. Our clients use our data to understand the existing risks in their customer and supplier bases, analyze markets and opportunities, and make data-driven business decisions, rather than relying on human opinions,” Florin Tufan shares for The Recursive.
Veridion was launched in 2018 due to a convergence of changes in several markets and technologies. With the rise of accessible and sophisticated AI and machine learning, financial services companies could replace large-scale repetitive tasks, such as evaluating new customers. Additionally, the infrastructure and tools for big data management had matured, making it easier for any company to build its own big data and analytics solutions. Finally, company data aggregators and producers had not adapted to these market changes, creating an opportunity for Veridion to enter the market with a more innovative approach.
From the start, the company faced high development and infrastructure costs, but received support from investors who appreciated the practical, low-cost solutions that the team in Romania was able to develop. Despite not having prior experience in the field, the Veridion team overcame this challenge by leveraging their region’s technical talent.
In October 2020, the company raised a $1.5M seed-round from GapMinder, DayOne Capital, and several angel investors through the equity crowdfunding platform Seedblink.
AI-powered market intelligence
Veridion fulfills a significant market demand for updated and comprehensive information on small and medium-sized businesses, with diverse clients including consulting firms, investment funds, tech companies, and financial services firms. Clients leverage Veridion’s products for a variety of purposes, including rapid identification of complex manufacturers, risk analysis of customer and supplier portfolios, market analysis, and discovery of unique investment opportunities.
“Access to accurate and timely company data opens a new way to success in today’s business landscape. It equips smart enterprises with the knowledge and understanding necessary to outcompete their competitors. By leveraging the power of Veridion’s algorithms and AI, Data Teams across the globe are able to gather firmographic data with speed, accuracy, and coverage that surpasses human capabilities. This newfound competitive advantage will propel their business towards even greater success in the future,” Rumen Iliev, Partner at LAUNCHub Ventures, highlights.
What’s ahead of Veridion?
Veridion operates in the firmographic data market, also known as the business information market, which was valued at $211 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $291 billion by 2027, driven by technologies such as AI. While other companies cover local markets and company records in the 10-20 million range, Veridion boasts over 70M company records within their first two years of operation.
After validating their data with large enterprise clients, Veridion is now releasing self-service APIs to enable faster data integration for potential clients and expand into new markets in data-centric SaaS and other early-stage solutions.
Within the next 12 months, the company will set up small commercial teams in the UK and the US East Coast, where they already have clients and partners. The latest investment will allow Veridion to triple its revenue, launch self-service public APIs that can easily be used by smaller companies and startups, and to further develop their data products.
