Corporations are increasingly becoming concerned about their environmental, social, and governance impacts as investors, policymakers, and other key stakeholders believe it’s a way to safeguard against future risk. It also helps organizations lower costs, attract new talent, manage liabilities, and access new revenue opportunities. Datamaran is is an automated ESG-focused risk intelligence platform for corporations to actively manage, monitor, and understand their exposure to risk and understand the opportunities available. By leveraging AI, the platform allows businesses to benchmark against their competitors, understand the legislative horizon and public opinion, and monitor risk to formulate cohesive strategies across an organization. The platform does this by monitoring 400+ risk factors against a company’s operational footprint. Since its founding in 2014, Datamaran has built an impressive roster of clients that include JP Morgan, PSE&G, Philips, Cisco, and Nestle.
London TechWatch caught up with Datamaran CEO and Cofounder Marjella Lecourt-Alma to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent round of funding, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
This was a £11.7M in a Series B funding round. Our investors were long-standing clients, Fortive and American Electric Power (AEP).
Tell us about your product or service.
Datamaran is a fully automated solution for identifying and monitoring material ESG risks and opportunities. We provide leaders with a clear understanding of the ESG risk landscape, enabling them to create data-driven strategies in-house with confidence.
Datamaran uses AI to cut through the noise and provide a high-definition view of global ESG risks.
What inspired the start of Datamaran?
Datamaran comes from humble beginnings – starting from a conversation between three friends. Today it is established in the boardrooms of some of the largest global companies.
Our inspiration and vision is to embed ESG into the DNA of every major company in the world, because that is when real change can happen. We might have pioneered the use of technology to bring order to the complex world of ESG risk and reward, but at our core we are a people business.
How is it different?
With Datamaran, you can go from setup to actionable insights in minutes, but as you continue to use the platform you are able to dive deeper, customise your experience and get ever more useful insights.
Datamaran allows you to develop data-driven ESG strategies tailored for your business, backed by real-time monitoring to stay ahead of emerging issues.
Datamaran is the only software in the world that can do this.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
We are targeting every blue chip and large-cap company, but focusing our efforts primarily on the US and European markets.
What’s your business model?
Datamaran is an annual subscription to a cloud-based platform.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
If you can raise money today raise it, if you can’t, work on understanding whether your value proposition is recession-proof or not.
What was the funding process like?
We have been approached by a lot of interested parties in the last 12 months, but for us, it was about finding the right partners for the most important stage of Datamaran’s development.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
As a profitable company, we had to make clear to investors that we did not want, nor need to, raise more money. Instead, we had to prove that this was about accelerating growth.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
The most pleasing part of this funding round was that the investors chosen are long-standing clients. They understand and value the benefits the platform offers. They are also progressive in their approach to ESG and, like us want, to be able to offer this tool to as many companies as possible. They see the growing opportunity for a product that helps companies get their ESG strategy right.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
In the short term, we plan to increase our headcount in areas that will help us drive profit and growth in the US and Europe by scaling our client base. We will also look to continuously innovate our products and elevate ESG to the C-suite and board.
What advice can you offer companies in London that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Figure out how to automate as much of the tech in your company as possible, have a fresh look at your product position, and make it as relevant as possible
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We want to get started on our new path immediately. We already have some senior hires in place and others will follow soon. We will also continue to develop the product to make it as valuable to both ESG professionals and the C-suite as possible. ESG is a fast-moving space – we are and will remain at the cutting edge of this development.
What is your favourite restaurant in London?
Jamie Oliver 15, the original, they served great cocktails. Since then, nothing really stands out to me.
