Factual
Careers at Factual
Mission
Factual believes that data should be accessible to every developer, entrepreneur, business, or organization – anyone who needs it to build a better app, provide a better search result, make smarter software – anyone who needs data to make a better decision or help others make better decisions
History
Gilad Elbaz was no amateur when he decided to start a company in 2008. By any measure, he was already an entrepreneurial success. In 1998 Elbaz had started a company called Oingo, which later came to be known as Applied Semantics. In 2003, Google bought that company for $100 million.
Elbaz could have rested upon his newfound success, but he decided he wasn’t done yet. He had an idea that he truly believed in. Elbaz wanted to change and improve the way that all the data in the world is structured. He also had a desire to make data as accessible as possible, in a way that works.
Along with his friend Tim Chklovski, Elbaz launched Factual on October of 2009. Their ultimate aim was to create a platform for anyone to share and mash open data. The new company set out by gathering location-based data from government sources. The firm, which began with $2 million in seed funding, gained some prominent customers, including Facebook. Factual’s aim to offer geo-targeted advertising based upon location-based data has turned out to be popular with investors.
Factual’s first round of funding was led by Marc Andreessen’s firm Andressen Horowitz and Index Ventures in 2010. The first round brought in $25 million in investment. The company’s second round of funding in 2015 brought in $35 million in funding. Elbaz has stated in interviews that one of the lessons he took from his time at Google is the importance of hiring. Factual replicates Google’s method of hiring with the help of third party advice. Today, Factual has around 250 employees and is based in Los Angeles, California.
