Data Ingestion Engine Theory

By Jacob Brody
Founding Partner, Helpful Networks
Star ting The Engine

A Data Ingestion Engine starts with a product or service that provides enough
value to customers to convince them to hand over their most valuable data.
Building The Moat

The ability to ingest valuable data sets at scale allows Data Ingestion Engines to
deliver unique insights and value while building meaningful competitive moats.
Priming The Flywheel

Data fuels the engine. More data yields newer insights, which allows Data Ingestion
Engines to build new products that incentivize customers to hand over more data.
Ty p e s o f D a t a

Most meaningful data sets fall into one or more of three main categories.

Be h a vio ra l Biometric Econometric

A record of an A record of a A record of

action. physiological signal. economic activity.
.
 Ty p e s o f D a t a

For a Data Ingestion Engine to scale, there must be an exponential advance in one
of four areas.

Diagnostic Refresh Structure Access

Sensitivity Rate

The fidelity of the The frequency of The format for The permission
data. data collection. organizing the and ability to
data. ingest the data.

These advances can result from technological, business model, or operational innovation.
E xa m p l e s o f D a t a I n g e s t i o n E n g i n e s

Name: Amazon
Market Capitalization: $563.54 billion *
Headquarters: Seattle, WA
Founded: 1994

Amazon is diversified technology conglomerate with large businesses in a number

of verticals notably ecommerce, cloud computing, retail, logistics, media, and
financial services. Amazon has rode its Data Ingestion Engine to grow from an online
retailer of books to become an insurgent threat to nearly every major American
company. Data from Amazon’s existing businesses prime the flywheel for new
businesses. Their Prime media business immediately leveraged ecommerce search
results and purchase data to start personalizing movie suggestions. Amazon Lending
has leveraged Amazon’s historical data sets on its marketplace vendors to extend
over $3 billion in loans since launching in 2011. The company’s digital advertising
business leverages user data from the ecommerce and media business to better
target ads and quickly become the 5th largest in the world.

*Market Capitalization on Jan 1, 2018

E xa m p l e s o f D a t a I n g e s t i o n E n g i n e s

Name: ADP
Market Capitalization: $51.97 billion*
Headquarters: Roseland, NJ
Founded: 1949

ADP is a provider of payroll services, HR software and compliance services for

businesses in the United States and internationally. With nearly 70 years in business
and 1 in 6 workers in the US paid through ADP, the company has amassed a
massive amount of data about the US economy and individual workers. With one of
the most robust and longstanding Data Ingestion Engines of econometric data in the
United States, ADP Research Institute publishes a monthly employment report that is
among the most relied upon measures of the US economy. The scale of ADPs access
to historical and updated data sets puts the company in a superior position to exploit
modern data analysis, machine learning, and artificial intelligence than insurgent
startups.

*Market Capitalization on Jan 1, 2018

E xa m p l e s o f D a t a I n g e s t i o n E n g i n e s

Name: Clover Health

Funding: $425 million
Investors: Sequoia Capital, GV, First Round Capital, Spark Capital
Headquarters: Jersey City, NJ and San Francisco, CA
Founded: 2013

Clover Health is a Medicare Advantage insurance company that aggregates,

structures, and analyzes previously siloed data sets to produce better patient
outcomes. The company’s role as a payer gives them financial leverage to get
structured data out of hospitals, primary care physicians, pharmacies and other key
parts of the healthcare industry. Clover’s data scientists and clinicians can leverage a
modern technology stack and centralized structured information to better identify
necessary interventions. Clover Health’s success identifying medical, behavioral and
socioeconomic factors for medical problems and rapidly testing non-medical
interventions is one of many ways Clover Health is looking to leverage its Data
Ingestion Engine to bend the risk curve instead of merely predicting and pricing risk.

*Disclosure: Jacob Brody is an investor in Clover Health

E xa m p l e s o f D a t a I n g e s t i o n E n g i n e s

Name: Tala
Funding: $44 million
Investors: IVP, Data Collective, Lowercase Capital
Headquarters: Santa Monica, CA
Founded: 2011

Tala (formerly Inventure) is a mobile technology and data science company that is
leveraging smartphone data to revolutionize financial services in emerging markets.
Tala analyzes 10,000 data points from user’s Android smartphones to underwrite
loans, typically in the $50 range. These loans mainly act as working capital for
entrepreneurs, a majority of them women, that were previously unprofitable to lend
to due to underwriting and customer acquisition costs. Tala leveraged their
customers, initially Kenyan entrepreneurs desperately in need of working capital and
happy to spread the word to their friends, and the frictionless data collection
enabled by the Android platform to build a Data Ingestion Engine. Tala is one of the
top five apps in Kenya and is quickly replicating this model in a number of new
markets.

*Disclosure: Jacob Brody is an investor in Tala

E xa m p l e s o f D a t a I n g e s t i o n E n g i n e s

Name: Vence
Funding: $2.7 Million
Investors: Eniac Ventures, Kickstart Seed, Rabobank
Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
Founded: 2016

Vence is an IAAS solution for livestock producers. Using connected devices and
artificial intelligence, Vence helps maximize livestock yield and optimize rotational
or strip grazing. By using Vence, which stands for virtual fence, livestock producers
can more efficiently manage their livestock and land while eliminating costly labor
and fencing. By providing value tied to a specific universal operating costs and
economic incentives, Vence has found an ideal opportunity to create a Data
Ingestion Engine for livestock behavioral and biometric data that can be used to
produce new insights and analytics offerings.

*Disclosure: Jacob Brody is an investor in Vence