The founding members of the company are Gunjan Thakuria, Naresh Palaiya, Himangshu Das, Nikit Shrungarpawar who come with vast industry experience in Machine Learning, Computer vision, Product with about 10 years in companies like Reliance, Accenture, Cognizant, Carwale and Vodafone. The company even has a former Executive Director at Noble Group as a Strategic Investor.
Initially, Tathya.Earth looked at oil commodity, soon to realise that they are looking at the market already served. The founders were clear that they would like to serve the area which is underserved and based on further research and market feedback, realised the they should target the metals in the commodities space as it is largely untapped. Hence, they started working on a model to provide near real-time insights on steel production in major steel companies of the world; iron ore and coal inventory in major ports of the world. The next set of commodities in pipeline being copper, aluminium, zinc and ferrous scrap inventory and production across the world.
The startup uses satellite data predominantly from public sources such as NASA and ESA which helps in keeping the cost lower than the competitors and provides insights on a weekly level, much before traditional information is out in the market. Such data is useful not only to provide before the market information advantage, it also helps track regions like SE Asia and Africa where hardly any data is available. Therefore, there is a huge demand for such data.
When it comes to funding, the company soon plans to raise another round, but would lookout out for strategic investors who also understand the industry or technology. Currently most of the type of investors they are looking out for are based overseas. They have already raised an angel and a seed round of US$350,000 which has helped them launch the initial products.
(The author is Co-founder and COO, Tathya.Earth)
