“Growing a business is like completing a jigsaw puzzle,” says Alok Goel, Founder and CEO of Drivetrain. Drivetrain, which Goel and his team announced today is raising $15 million in funding, will help businesses avoid falling into that trap — and thus complete the picture and fulfill their potential.
Drivetrain is a cloud-based software-as-a-service application designed to make it easy for businesses to plan their execution strategy and monitor their performance against their goals. It pulls data from the business’s existing tools — it can integrate 200 different tools, from Excel spreadsheets to Salesforce applications — to provide a single view of where the company stands now, where it’s headed, and what it needs down the road.
“Think of us as Google Maps for business,” adds Google. “When you’re in an unfamiliar place, Google Maps tells you how to get to your destination, tracks your journey and helps you get back on track if you get lost. Drivetrain does the same for your business.”
The company sees its target customer base as any business that has found its market niche and has proven that it has a product or service that its customers want to buy; The talent for such businesses is growing quickly, maximizing customer reach and managing cash flow and identifying new opportunities in the process of hitting key goals.
Drivetrain’s role in that, argues Goel, is to provide a simple data set on which the company can base its decisions. It gives management teams a clear picture of where they are today, as well as the ability to map the impact of any decisions aimed at moving the business towards its goals. Once decisions are made, Drivetrain continuously monitors the impacts to identify differences between actual results and expectations. It can help managers to catch up where there is a gap.
Part of the appeal is the personalization that Drivetrain CTO and co-founder Tarkeshwar Thakur offers. “Every business is a little different,” he argues. “We designed the drivetrain to be flexible from the ground up. Behind the scenes, the system creates a program for the business that takes care of all the details.
Goel and Thakur’s main point is that companies should avoid making instinctive decisions based on gut feelings; Instead, all the choices the company makes should be informed by the information.
Many companies agree, but in practice they find it difficult to use their data – held in multiple systems in the business – to drive more scientific decision-making processes. “The key is that no data in the company should be left untouched,” Goel added.
Independent research points in the same direction. For example, Gartner published a statistical warning that only 13% of organizations can identify performance issues before they begin to impact financial metrics. This reflects the inability to use data at baseline.
Drivetrain’s idea was based on Goel’s experience as a partner at Elevation Capital, where he spent time as a venture capitalist tracking over 1,000 potential investments. Over time, interest grew in the common denominators of companies that predictably and successfully execute their plans—the most prominent commonality being their ability to plan well and base decisions on data.
That prompted the launch of Drivetrain in April 2021, when Goel, Thakur and a small team began developing a prototype of today’s platform. Since then, the business has grown to 35 members of staff and began selling the software commercially three months ago.
Drivetrain Founders Tarkeshwar Thakur, Alok Goel, Saurav Bhagat
Now that commercialization process appears to have accelerated, with Elevation Capital, Jungle Ventures and Venture Highway — plus a team of 25 angel investors, advisors and founders — injecting $15 million into the company.
“I see Drivetrain as a core part of the financial technology stack for growth-stage companies,” explains Jungle Ventures Principal Arpit Berry. “You need a measurement layer that answers strategic questions about what you can do to increase revenue or decrease costs and drive more predictable results to simulate and implement your growth strategies.”
The funds raised are earmarked for two types of deployment, says Goel. “This is one of those products where development never stops, so we need more resources to help us complete the product in depth,” he said. “We also need to invest in going to market – we’re just getting our heads around building the project and now we need more help with sales, marketing and content.”
