C5i expands AI capabilities with strategic acquisition of Analytic Edge
C5i (formerly Course5 Intelligence), is a pure-play AI & analytics provider that combines the power of human perspective with AI technology to deliver trustworthy intelligence to global corporations. C5i has built its reputation by leveraging cutting-edge AI technologies, including Large Language Models like GPT, to solve complex business challenges. The company’s expertise covers the full spectrum of the AI value chain, offering solutions from data management to predictive and prescriptive analytics.
Headquartered in Mumbai, C5i has been at the forefront of digital transformation for some of the world’s largest enterprises, including several Fortune 500 companies across sectors such as technology, media, telecom, pharmaceutical & life sciences, CPG, retail and banking.
The company’s clients include four of the top seven companies in the world by market cap -- four of the top 10 CPG companies in the world and four of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the world. C5i has been recognised by leading industry analysts, such as Gartner and Forrester for its analytics and AI capabilities and proprietary AI-based solutions. About 3 per cent of C5i’s revenue comes from India, while the majority, about 70 per cent from the US. The rest is split across Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific. However, India hosts 90 per cent of its workforce of about 1,800 employees, who are based across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Coimbatore.
“The company drives value through a comprehensive solution set, integrating multi-functional teams that have technical and business domain expertise with a robust suite of products, solutions and services, tailored for various horizontal and industry-specific use cases,” says Ashwin Mittal, executive chairman, C5i. “At the core, C5i’s focus is to deliver business impact at speed and scale by driving adoption of AI-assisted decision-making”. C5i is planning to go public sometime in 2026.
The last few years have been quite eventful for the company, which raised $53 million in 2023 (according to sources, C5i got a valuation of about $250 million) for future expansion through organic and inorganic means. C5i went on to acquire Incivus, a GenAI-based AdTech platform that predicts the effectiveness of digital ads, before they are launched.
In July 2024, the company acquired Analytic Edge, a premier provider of AI-based marketing analytics solutions, which was founded in 2015 and is a world-leading specialist in AI & technology-enabled analytics solutions for marketing and sales effectiveness, with 185 associates worldwide. With head-quarters in Singapore and offices in India, the US, Europe, Japan and Brazil, AE boasts an impressive stable of global clients, including four of the top 15 consumer packaged goods companies in the world and leading global social media platforms.
Strategic move
Analytic Edge combines the powerful capabilities of its Qube platform with consulting and services to provide best-in-class marketing optimisation solutions to its clients. As C5i stays on course to achieve a Rs1,000-crore turnover in the next financial year, this strategic move will additionally strengthen the company's capabilities in globally scalable and integrated delivery of always-on marketing analytics, insights and optimisation.
“At C5i, we work closely with our customers and partners, to offer actionable insights and deliver sustainable business impact by combining human perspectives with the power of AI,” adds Mittal. “We have found a striking similarity with Analytic Edge in our core values of customer obsession, innovation, trust, empowerment and collaboration. Analytic Edge is the perfect strategic fit for completing our portfolio in the area of marketing spend optimisation. They bring powerful AI and predictive capabilities with their platform and talent base. C5i has always believed in delivering superior outcomes to clients by combining IP and people capabilities and Analytic Edge has the same philosophy.”
Mittal is responsible for driving the overarching strategy, organisational development, mergers & acquisitions, and a vibrant and equitable corporate culture at C5i. With a sharp focus on client centricity, analytics and AI adoption and continuous innovation, he has architected the growth of C5i into one of the leading Analytics and AI solution providers in the world.
Recently, Analytic Edge has become a certified partner in APAC for Google’s Meridian Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) platform. Meridian is an open-source MMM platform built by Google to help advertisers measure the impact of their marketing spends on sales and make smarter, data-driven decisions on marketing strategy and budgets. For the Meridian partnership, Analytic Edge will serve as a consulting and modelling partner to help Google’s advertisers develop MMMs using Meridian.