How Small Businesses Use Big Data

In 2008, software engineer Vidur Dhanda was consulting on a risk management project on Wall Street when he noticed a fundamental problem: Even the country’s biggest lenders, in the midst of the financial crisis, did not have good data on the health of America’s small and midsize businesses.

His effort to remedy the problem resulted in the Business Default Index, which his Longmeadow (Mass.) startup, WAIN Street, launched last fall. The monthly index is based on the credit performance of nearly 18 million U.S. businesses. “I saw an opportunity. Could we get more data?” recalls Dhanda, who plans to market his index to banks that have long had problems getting lending data. A couple of them are piloting the product now, he says.