Heckyl Technologies eyeing over $18M in fresh funding, to expand to Asia and US in 2014

Mumbai- and UK-based Heckyl Technologies Pvt Ltd, which offers a Big Data-based analytical platform for investors, traders and researchers, is planning to raise more than $18 million in a fresh round of funding in the next calendar year. Heckyl, which secured $3.5 million in a Series B round led by IDG Ventures with participation from existing investor Seedfund Advisors early this month, is also looking to expand its operations to Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia by August-September 2014.

"We are building a platform which is a combination of Big Data and financial analytics, and a lot of money is required to develop it. Also, we are looking to increase the team size as part of our plan to expand to Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia over the next few quarters," said Mukund Mudras, co-founder and CEO, Heckyl. According to Mudras, there are a huge number of brokerage firms and hedge funds in these markets and the firm is looking to target them. The company, which did $250,000 in revenues in the last financial year (FY12-13), is looking to close the current fiscal with $1 million in revenues.

Heckyl was founded in December 2010 by four former Merrill Lynch executives Abhijit Vedak, Jaison Mathews, Mukund Mudras and Som Sagar. It provides a real-time news and data analytic platform to brokerage firms, short-term traders, investors and fund managers. Its integrated solution with trading terminals provide information, visuals, heat maps of sentiments and market data to help traders find the trading opportunity in the market.

Heckyl started its overseas expansion with the UK which is, Mudras says, almost similar to the Indian market in terms of customer behaviour. "We are already running a pilot with a couple of investors. We are also eyeing the US, but we would look to go there with a full-fledged product."

The company claims that unlike the traditional platforms, Heckyl brings in a social media aspect to its platform. A B2B platform, Heckyl has already bagged more than 20 clients that include Angel Broking, Sharekhan, Motilal Oswal, IndiaInfoline and Religare. It will soon launch a Big Data mining platform for financial institutions and the hedge fund industry.

According to Mudras, Indian Big Data industry is still in the nascent stages but it will evolve with time. "I think it is a matter of time before this industry is evolved," he said.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)