This story was migrated from our old blog, originally published on June 8th, 2021
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This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.
Meet Palturai — The Google of Business Data
We used to store data in paper-based handwritten cards. We bring this to the 21st century … so you can get some great insights from it.Tilo Walter, CEO and Founder Palturai
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You can use our tool for example in the KYC process.Tilo Walter, CEO and Founder Palturai
The Founder
We talk in this interview to Tilo Walter (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tilo-walter-18b90567/), the CEO and Founder of Frankfurt-based business intelligence platform Palturai (https://palturai.com/?lang=en).
Tilo first started out with an apprenticeship at a bank, after studying industrial engineering he was a consultant and then spent quite some time working in Germany’s largest credit bureau called Schufa.
This gave him the idea of Palturai, which allows one to aggregate important business data to companies.
We have data from more than 7 mn companies, from public sources, building a graph with more than 1 bn relations.Tilo Walter, CEO and Founder Palturai
The Startup
Palturai (https://palturai.com/?lang=en) is a business intelligence platform, aggregating important data about companies in their database. The company provides the information as a business graph. The name also originates form a Hungarian mathematician named Pál Turán, who contributed a lot to graph theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A1l_Tur%C3%A1n). The company was founded in 2014, but re-branded in 2020 with the opening of their first international location close to Philadelphia.
We have been bootstrapped, but with the international expansion we needed a proper funding round.Tilo Walter, CEO and Founder Palturai
Funding Round
Palturai raised 4 mn Euros Series A investments, and their investors include a German bank and SBI Holding (Softbank’s Berlin entity).
With the outbreak of corona, all of our US expansion plans have been blown to pieces. We had to change our strategy fast.Tilo Walter, CEO and Founder Palturai
The Video Interview is set to go live on June 24th, 2021
The area around Frankfurt is greatly underestimated for startups. Here are the customers for most startups.Tilo Walter, CEO and Founder Palturai
The Audio Interview Podcast
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The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
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Automated Transcript
[0:00] Startup Red Dot IO.
[0:09] Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startups.With News interviews and Live Events.
[0:20] Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from celebrated I owe your startup podcast and you to block from Germany as well as the Woods firstinternet radio station dedicated to startups and tech companies again I’m bringing you another interview in our series together withinvest in hasn’t.com brand of hasn’t trade invest where all the investors and startups are looking to relocate to Germany or invest in Germany should pay a visit,chew this time I would like to work until hey how you doing.Hi Joe nice to meet you I’m really good thanks a lot totally my pleasure we may ask for everybody who’s watching this on YouTube there tennis.Their tennis bats in in the back everything is tennis around you that is because you recording this before the the workshop of a strategy retreats,start so actually you book the tennis club and that is where you’re recording from right yes yes that’s true after this.Financing round we discussed we go out for one today’s for strategy meeting and we thought this room here with a lot of moving images tennis paths records and a lot of stuff around uswe’ll go give us the right atmosphere for this hopefully very successful one two days.
[1:41] Smashed problems good approach I like that one and.As always we talking with our guest a little bit of wood what they did before and,you have actually very interesting CV because you did an apprenticeship as aat Ash Park has a thrift organization you then went on to study industrial engineering how did you make the switch from being a banker to being an engineer.Yeah I think this was.Very spontaneous decision so after finishing the school I started to work in a bank make an apprenticeship for two years and I think this was a really really good decision.Because after just being in school I just you really learn how to work get up in the morning every time very early be in the bank atdata clock not it five not a 10 so I think so it was sometimes a little bit boring,I really learned a lot especially how is the working life and I learned a lot about other people’s job what I want to has work whether I want to work like them or not.
[2:48] And after the apprenticeship which was really good time I decided that I want perhaps to make something different to have a little bit broader perspective than just the operational banking business.And went to University where industrial engineering is a combination of.
[3:05] Could not mix mathematics and informatics mostly so my engineering part was mostly mathematics and information programming informatics and I spend a lot of time in theUniversity doing some programming coding and that’s what I think is very very good preparation for the later career so finally was a combination of.Going on with their business side but get more of the technique and the in the beings behind to learn more about thatand then I’ve seen you’ve been a consultant for some time okay cliche take but would have found very interesting you have been with a Germany’s number one credit bureau with the shoe farfor quite some time and I think you kind of went back into finances there somehow can you tell us a little bit would shuford us for everybody who’s not from Germany which is somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of our audienceand what you did there yes of course so I think Germany as you know everybody knows shooter probably becausetwo faces credit bureau collecting data about natural persons and companies mostly to provide some credit scores to.Banks financing companies to help them to assess whether they should give a correct or not and.
[4:26] This company of exist since 1927 so it’s a very traditional German company but historically it was not it based there were just paper-based and therefore there were a lot of those entities all over Germany.
[4:41] And in the year 2000 they were all merged into one commercial,company and starting in 2002 and that company was really amazing because it was a momentum their company with a lot of tradition was reset from scratch like a startupwith a very well-known brand some turnover but with the freedom to.Explore and to develop a lot of stuff and this was reading amazing time and at that company I was responsible for setting up.Come and hold me to a company and create bro,with data about companies and to open the critical for consumers that they can access to their data and this was really an amazing time a really look back to it with a lot of pleasure but after I think 11 years,it was the momentum where a lot of tech companies were starting and a lot of things were going on.I thought it’s now the right momentum working in a bank studying a lot of programming and setting up databases working in that environment.To set up something on my own and this is this was 2014.
[5:48] I would say the the the starting point of what is today called Petrova.Pies to hi yes I’m a I see you you first it another startup but basically in March 20 20 you founded the palturai.Can you tell us a little bit about when you did as an entrepreneur in between and then we can get to you to our main topic you yeah it was it was honestly it was just one started we just changed the name of the company last year.Our previous name Convent was not the perfect name for the internationalisation and while as we were setting up our subsidiary in the u.s. next to Philadelphia we decided,to take this opportunity to change one’s our brand controller much more International.
[6:41] Question perhaps to give you to come to the question before what means palturai I think this is the name is inspired by an Hungarian mathematician.Was working with graph Theory and his name was piled to run and we combined this name changed a little bit and this is,and the idea behind touch of a we we said Philadelphia basically what my brain said cheese the king.So so so we can already establish.Apparently you guys like Cheesesteak but also more important you are already an international company can you tell me a little bit about.What you started with problem I solving and what you guys are actually doing because there’s so far we have not touched this yet,okay of course I think the problem behind where we are working on is quite easy to understand,and I assume everybody who listens to this series would have exactly this problem though you’re all potential customers and this is you all have been you all have a lot of customers a lot of suppliers just named a lot of business partners.
[7:59] And you store them in your ear pieces team to like the vision or sap or whatever on your Salesforce Microsoft Dynamics CRM system you have a lot of sisters where you’re still all the information about your business partners.
[8:11] But you store them honestly as like index cards like I did it in my apprenticeship in the back you just did a file desk and you rode with a pencil something on the paper and put it in the map to the customer so this was traditionally storing data about an entity.Today our systems are pretty much the same the only thing is you change the pencil to the keyboard because you just type it into your CRM system into your Erp system.
[8:36] But wouldn’t it be great if you just.Set up a new company and your customer for example and would immediately know well the CEO of this company is shareholder of another customer and in the supervisory Board of supplier so,all your business partners I connected all of them but you do not know who and how and if you would know it,you could use it for a lot of interesting to get a lot of interesting insights and coordinate graph insights insights out of their Network for example who can make you some warm introductions to potential leads or if you have a problem with a customerwhich other ones will be influenced by him but supposing all the kyc requirements who is standing behind the company.All about the whole world is an economy everybody’s it’s interval width and link between other companies and people.
[9:31] But systematically nobody knows them and this is the approach that this is the problem would be solved by.Collecting a lot of data from public sources so we have that about 7 million companies all over the globe building a graph which has more than a billion relations.
[9:48] Since offering this huge graph to our customers to get the insights about their own cap Networks,I’m talking about public sources what comes to mind here in Germany is like the public register of companies handles League East there additional otheravailable data sources and I assume you also do the same with your subsidiary in Philadelphiayes and no so what we of course in Germany in Europe and Austria and Switzerland we get we get the data from a lot of registers but not only righteous as a lot ofwebsite public sources everything where we are really sure that we fulfill all the GDP are restrictions and we are very aware of this,neverthelessM nevertheless we have some other source in the u.s. like credit bureaus and other data providers,I see so basically you’re not a competitorafter likes a big three credit bureaus like TransUnion Experian and Equifax but you also use their data so basically they are a supplier two years and when somebody,enters business with another company with another person they can basically more or less.
[11:16] Pal to write the person like instead of Googling this person what the Gente texactly it’s quite a little bit like this so it’s we do not only get the data from credit or is it a lot of sources which is sauce to build the network and we unless you really and that’s really.Good good remind we are not a competitor to any creditor of we do not do any credit scores we do not assess whether somebody can pay or not.
[11:41] We just make existing Transportation networks transparent all these data sources and.
[11:50] So they can use our application they use hypnosis application they can use our sap or Salesforce Force application,to get the insights into the Network’s so basically you’re the Google of business informationlittle bit of the mixture between Google and Lincoln of business information I think I can describe clothes as well so a lot of people say I’m just something like it in and you said no because the in lieprobably most offor the people who listens today are on LinkedIn and they have a lot of contents on the in the like Lincoln they post things because we use the in as well of course because I like this look.Nevertheless That’s Mike there my contacts my post everything is from a person and if a company leaves at the person leaves a company.The network of this person is as well and.But the company itself has a massive Network just imagine you have just let’s take a bank with a hundred thousand customers.
[12:49] The biggest hundred thousand customers within know for example the CEO or some people and then if they would know who they those people know.
[12:57] The bank would say Del can you make me an introduction to this guy you know him and regardless which sales guy will,be responsible for this customer you can use the networkso I would say basically it’s most useful for people who are looking to do sales as well as for entrepreneurs and Founders because they are always about yourself stuff right,yeah it’s it’s very good we have a lot of come people use it for sales purposes as a sales company and sales departments just collecting all the companies where you know somebody which can make you wrong introduction.
[13:36] Getting very special selections and want introductions and.But the second very big issue is getting risk of your part of your custom so I just come up with sales because it’s very close by that everybody clearly ssk of course we make Network sales.But taking it for risk is very important slow andyes what did you talked about like cluster risk because this company is related to this companies related to this company one of them slides into insolvency the other two also have risk to you because they are so interconnectedthey can also go down that is something you should be aware of and we talking today because in May you publish the series a of formillion years can you tell us a little bit about what you did for the series a funding and what are you using it for and a little bit about you investor,yes oh yes after.
[14:35] The first years were really the founders when Finance the company mostly themselves and just supported by some really very helpful business angels.We decided last year.
[14:48] After setting up the completely ignore after together with setting up the company in the US and with the international expansion that we need to make a much more proper financingI think we were lucky that we were able to make a lot of turnover in the last year’s though.Much better than having investors is having a lot of customers who pay because business.Better it be able to ride a lot of time when that wave but then we decided that the idea so matching over the whole work that sap and cells causing a lot of other companies the really like the idea.And said well it’s interesting why do we not know the Network’s of our relations sap talks about the intelligent Enterprise.How are you intelligent if you do not know the relationship within the business class then you are no intelligent a place and coming up with all those Partnerships and.Really a lot of discussions where people said look your candle of something really big this was the point very first he said come on let’s make em financing round and we.
[15:53] We decided to take this one investor to investors one was from the chairman bankingbacked by some German banks because this is an important customer base for us and therefore we sit okay this they will help us to get,more proper connections and set up the system speed of sales in that area and the second one is backed by SPI holding which is coming from SoftBank.
[16:23] Yes bear holding from Japan and this is for us very important as we will speed up our internationalisation and.Therefore we wanted to split the investment and choose to investors combining the one hand access to customers the other hand and access to International experience.
[16:42] And you first step for international expansion with the US and how was it to expand during times of Corona.The difficult I would have First International expansion we did 2015 when we set them our first company in Poland where we have our where we hire where we have employed 2025 Developers.And then in 2020 we said WS in Austria and of course it’s a setting up a company in every 2020 in the US.
[17:17] Was.Interesting as is of course or original plans.Blown Away within a week so no fast no releases Portman’s no point in meetings no marketing activities everything was blown away we had of course we seized up spending a lot of money on a lot of stuff,there’s nobody knew what will happen.And therefore we had to reorganize our us subsidiary not not reorganize that is not mean and they were only three people so we kept our three people but we did not expand a lot and this,had to wait one year and this will now come up this year.But it was interesting of course if you want to have a sales subsidiary working with Partners talking to Partners making a lot of appointments.If you know if you an unknown just setting up from scratch just why our web meetings it’s a really really difficult this is where I think.It’s easier to go to some fares to some conference to where you meet a lot of people and when you talk this is probably much much easier.
[18:26] Everybody’s talking about digital and working from home but you can never underestimate the human effect you have that I do believe we you referring to right yeah yeah I think I think you can do a lot of dickyou can do a lot a shuttlebut best if you know each other if you have to set up something from scratch and nobody knows you and you have no relations like we had in the US then I thinkhaving a people meeting meetings where you can convince people they will talk about you this is very very helpful and this is.Really what we lost.
[19:01] And he said your investors include SBI SoftBank and this question would you approach that hey we are from the area of Frankfurt in hessen how did they like it they said.We’re waiting from here from the big tunnel full time which will nobody know which listens to this podcast probablyso there’s some fun ones are from this lovely town with 40,000 people yeah but but but we did not approach them directly there somebody managing their funds and they sit in Berlin so it was not so far that we have to talkor it’s me to Japan most things from went about God.
[19:42] Bye Berlin I see em basically you speak you reached out to those people convince them and then they invested so so not a lot of Corona travel to Japan no.Especially a woman.
[19:58] I see as since since we’re talking about investing hessen here and we’re getting close to our usual 25 minutescrap it cap for the interview can you tell us a little bit about thethe the the location what do you like about it and some of the advantages why you decide to set up shop here.
[20:22] I think it’s quite easy just have to take a nap.If you injure money and you take a map from Germany you look what is in the middle of Journey you will find hasn’t which is the state in Germany which is mostly in the center of.Potential and if you look what is in the center then you come to Franklin so with the biggest airport best train station best a lot of.Mobility office all around here so one very important thing of our,base here in whole families that we have really quick access to all customers in Germany of course our first customers were of course in Germanythen we have as I said a lot of banks and we drive 10 minutes to Frankfurt so we do not have to work to go to to to our office for every day in the big city where it’s really expensive we stay in the smaller City or around.Going to the customers 10–15 minutes.To the customer and the same thing back little logistically this is a perfect place the second thing is we have a lot of good universities Frankfurt it down start the European business school in so he can respond so we have a lot of talent here.
[21:31] And,nevertheless when you set up a company you take some of your colleagues with you then they all abide based of obviously all around here.And therefore it’s on the it’s a really good plan Place regarding talent Logistics and customers.
[21:50] And I think especially the area Bond Frankfurt is totally underestimated.Plus startups in Germany because this is the biggest hub for potential customers perhaps next to Cologne it is not but.Of course in Berlin you have more startups but nobody who buys your product and this is,yeah but this is the problem because I would say if I would have found it Berlin I would travel to Frankfurt every day and this is crap so I thinkgo to the customers be able to go to the customers everyday in 10 minutes and 15 minutes this is where’s the perfect place.But not all the others people and started spend a lot of money.
[22:31] I actually love the saying my frequent listeners already know this Frankfort has a lot of wonderful places but unfortunately it’s very good in hiding them and the same holds true for good entrepreneurs so.Once again check so he do it was just a pleasure having you here,thank you very much for being a guest everybody who’d like to learn more can go down here in the show notes wherever you listening to this or watching this there should be a link to our blog post where we can haveall the when we don’t have a cap or in terms ofladdu sweet the week tab in so they’ll be the show notes with a link to your LinkedIn profile with a link to your armcompany website the press release and so on and so forth and of course again invest in Hesston and everybody would like to learn more can go down here click on itand learn more thank you very much for being a guest thanks luckily it was really a pleasure thanks John bye-bye right.If you are a professional looking at the European startup scene Germany is a place you cannot miss.
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