Enigma

Enigma is a data intelligence company that provides data and infrastructure for making decisions about small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The company was founded in 2011 by Hicham Oudghiri and Marc DaCosta, who met as students at Columbia University. The idea for Enigma was born out of frustrations during the 2008 financial crisis, where they recognized that available public data was not being effectively used to understand major economic events. Oudghiri serves as the CEO, while DaCosta is the Chairman.

Oudghiri previously managed a sustainable finance program at BMCE Bank in partnership with the World Bank Group. DaCosta has a background as a creative technologist and anthropologist, focusing on the intersection of data technologies and lived experience. The company launched at the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference in 2013, where it won the Startup Battlefield. Enigma has since raised approximately $130 million in funding from investors including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Third Point, Comcast Ventures, and Capital One Growth Ventures.

Enigma's core service involves collecting vast amounts of public and private data, which it then cleans, connects, and enriches using machine learning to provide intelligence on the identity, financial health, and risk profile of businesses. This is delivered to clients through a flexible GraphQL API, data shares for direct warehouse syncing, or a web-based search interface. The company's data model resolves business identity by linking brands, legal entities, and operating locations into a single, unified profile called the Enigma Identity Graph. Key products have included 'Enigma Assembly' for data management and 'Enigma Concourse' for data operations. Their services are used by Fortune 500 companies and financial institutions for a variety of use cases, including Know Your Business (KYB) compliance, customer onboarding, risk underwriting for insurance and lending, and go-to-market strategies. The business model operates on a Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) basis, with a pay-as-you-go model for API calls and subscription-based access.

Keywords: business intelligence, SMB data, financial health data, data infrastructure, API, KYB solutions, risk management, data-as-a-service, DaaS, entity resolution, lead generation, underwriting data, go-to-market data, business verification, merchant onboarding, public data, data enrichment, firmographics, commercial data, corporate registration data