Like dust particles in the air, data is everywhere. It powers most of our digital lives—what are services like Facebook, Google Maps, and Uber, if not hordes of data points triangulating with each other?—and empowers today’s businesses, by giving them a tool with which to make analytically sound decisions.
That is, if those businesses use a service like DueDil. Short for due diligence, DueDil takes an age old challenge—deciding whom to do business with—and applies a “Future Ready” approach. Founder and CEO Damian Kimmelman describes the London-based startup as a “horizontal B2B” that “takes silos of online data—whether they’re government data sets, data from businesses, or from other data providers—to bring it together for the purposes of finding and assessing risk.” Put more simply: DueDil serves up publicly available data all in one place, on a silver platter. It even works on a freemium model for customers who prefer to opt out of paying additional fees.
Kimmelman founded DueDil shortly after going into (a different) business with someone he now calls “a crook.” “He used falsified accounts to get a loan from a bank,” he says. “With DueDil, I wanted to expose people who were being bad in business.”
The company has carved a niche for itself in the crowded data analytics marketplace: Kimmelman says DueDil has blossomed into more than just a place to parse through data and assess risk. It’s evolved into a Renaissance tool for any type of business looking to make almost any kind of informed decision. “Pretty much every department in every single business had a use for this data, and when we looked at the market we saw hundreds of these vertical solutions,” Kimmelman says.
Part of DueDil’s strength is its ability to scale its offering; it can offer value to smaller businesses as well as large multinationals. Consider these two DueDil customers: a global tech company and a London ping-pong bar around the corner from DueDil’s office. On the surface, these two companies have little in common. But, as it turns out, both are tapping into DueDil’s well of data to find returns on investments.
The tech company’s sales team, for instance, uses DueDil to find new business opportunities, Kimmelman says. “They can search for businesses of a certain size, with 50-plus people, in artificial intelligence, in Northwest London,” he says. “They can figure out things like does the business have depreciating assets? Or if they’ve just taken funding and just decided to go global?” The pub, on the other hand, used DueDil to see which businesses in the area had upcoming anniversaries and, therefore, might want to throw anniversary parties. “They had a ROI within a week,” Kimmelman says.
Having established a strong foothold in London, DueDil’s attention is shifting to scale: in 2014 it nabbed $17 million in funding, which will enable the company to introduce more products that allow for real-time analytics as well as to expand their global reach. Kimmelman described this next step as, “embedding world-class discovery tools, platforms and networks into daily working life.” Data can address so many challenges, and that’s only going to become more true; it’s up to DueDil to keep making that data accessible.
*****
Some may recall the old adage: “early is on time, on time is late.” This sentiment holds particular relevance in today’s rapidly evolving tech landscape: Being up to date is not good enough. Companies need to proactively anticipate what the future holds and adjust accordingly—that’s the idea behind Dell’s “Future Ready” initiative, aimed at helping customers stay ahead with cutting edge tech solutions and services. This piece is one of a four part series in which Dell highlights companies that embody the “Future Ready” mentality, striving to foster and embrace innovations in mobility, security, scale, competitive strategy, and sustainability.
Is your business Future Ready?
This article was produced on behalf of Dell by the Quartz marketing team and not by the Quartz editorial staff.