Fractal Analytics appoints co-founder Pranay Agrawal as new CEO

Fractal Analytics, the India- and US-based data analytics provider, on Wednesday appointed co-founder and chief client officer Pranay Agrawal as its new CEO and announced a change in the organisational structure to boost growth.

Agrawal replaces co-founder Srikanth Velamakanni, who has been named group CEO and executive vice chairman, the company said in a statement.

Agrawal said his priorities will be to build Fractal's presence in the US and Europe and develop capabilities to stay ahead of rapidly evolving client needs.

The company, which raised as much as $100 million from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad earlier this year, also unveiled a new corporate structure to accelerate growth.

The company said it will organise itself into four distinct entities. These are Fractal Analytics, whose core business will be providing analytics to Fortune 500 companies; Customer Genomics and TrialRun, the artificial intelligence-based customer learning and systematic experimentation platforms; Cuddle.ai, a newly launched insights delivery AI assistant; and Qure.ai, Fractal's new AI business in healthcare imaging and genomics.

"Our vision is to power every human decision in the enterprise through analytics, AI and technology. This structure will help us focus sharply on our clients and help them end to end," said Agrawal.

Velamakanni, in his new role, will be responsible for all four entities, inorganic growth and the long-term future of the business.

"AI and deep learning will transform the way companies make strategic, tactical and operational decisions. We are gearing up by taking our AI-based products independently to market and expanding our executive leadership team," he said.

Fractal Analytics was founded in 2000 by IIM Ahmedabad alumni Velamakanni and Agrawal along with Nirmal Palaparthi, Pradeep Suryanarayan and Ramakrishna Reddy. Palaparthi, Suryanarayan and Reddy have quit the company. Now headquartered in the US, Fractal has offices in London, Mumbai, New Delhi, Singapore and Dubai.

Palaparthi, an IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Madras alumnus, quit Fractal in 2012 and launched Mobius Innovations, a mobile-based context-aware Big Data startup based in Singapore. Fractal acquired Mobius in January last year.

Prior to the big funding round from Khazanah, the company had raised $25 million from private equity investor TA Associates in 2013.

Fractal ties up with consumer companies, retailers and financial institutions to understand, predict and influence consumer behaviour and improve marketing, pricing, supply chain, risk and claims management. The company also builds analytics solutions and forecasts business performance.