Ratan Tata invests in Chennai-based Crayon Data

Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, today made a personal investment of an undisclosed amount in Chennai-based Crayon Data, a big data company. Crayon is a portfolio company of Jungle Ventures.

Srikant Sastri, founder of Crayon Data, said, “We are excited and honoured to meet Ratan Tata and have our vision validated by him is an accolade in itself”. Srikant Sastri and Suresh Shankar founded Crayon in 2012.

Crayon’s flagship product MayaTM is a personalisation engine that facilitates choice delivery for the banking, hotel and digital media verticals. Crayon is developing a global consumer taste fabric, which currently maps choice across 15 categories, using complex machine-learning techniques and proprietary cognitive thinking algorithms. This taste fabric is then mapped to vast internal (enterprise) and external (online) data sets to provide a set of highly personalized choices to consumers.  Crayon’s unique proposition has resulted in multiple clients across international markets, in the past year alone.

Crayon has previously raised approximately S$ 10 million in seed and Series A funding from angel institutional investors like Jungle Ventures and Spring Seeds. Tata recently joined Jungle Ventures as a special advisor.