10 years of Transparent Data — the history of the first data software house in Poland

Who is the Transparent Data technology company and what is its DNA? This is the story of an economic data provider that became the first data software house in Poland. Our sincere “selfie” for 10 years of existence in the RegTech industry.

Transparent Data — data software house from Poland

Even in business, nostalgia is needed sometimes — a reminder of why we’ve come this far

In 2013, the first ear was 3D printed, Prince William had his first child, and Benedict XVI was the first to resign as pope in over 600 years. In 2013, something else happened, something that did not attract the attention of the masses, but in the long run changed the industry of professional providers of economic information in Poland: the technology company Transparent Data began to take its first steps.

The word of that year was selfie. So, celebrating a decade of our activity in 2023, we decided to photograph ourselves bit by bit, wrinkle by wrinkle, honestly and authentically. It is important. It is necessary. This reminds all the people who create (and have created) our company that we have something to be proud of. Our aspirations (even those we said goodbye to) are good adventures, and what DNA we have today is not an evolutionary accident, but a lot of work, creativity and learning. For you, our client or friend, it is also a source of knowledge about who you are really dealing with.

What will you find in this article about Transparent Data?

• An explanation of what a data software house really does
• The history of Transparent Data products and services
• An explanation of why we work with data and why it gives us satisfaction
• A few super cool things (not only for business) that we can boast about

Telling the story of Transparent Data company from the end

Currently, we are a professional data software house that primarily serves large companies and corporations. You will find us on the maps of Polish FinTech and LendTech. We act not only as a supplier of economic data from Poland, but also as a technological partner that ensures full data interoperability — we are a company that aggregates, parses, cleans, enriches, builds APIs for process automation, creates data-based applications and platforms, provides services pre-development, and most importantly advises its clients.

From the very beginning, Transparent Data’s motto has remained unchanged:

“We work with data & software to solve your business problems”

This has not changed, although like every company on a dynamically functioning market, we have evolved strongly, adapting our RegTech products to the needs of our customers.

It was from business needs that the first data software house in Poland was born

You certainly do not doubt that the needs of today’s business are not the same as they were 10 years ago. Digital transformation is no longer a bedtime story, and mature organizations have taken data management seriously. A number of new regulations have been introduced that shape the RegTech industry and how both AML and business risk assessment, KYC KYB compliance, look like in practice. The same economic information we provide has also changed — CRBR (UBO Register for Poland) and the White List (VAT taxpayers register) were created, financial statements were digitized. A decade ago, very few people knew what open data was and business did not reach for it as widely as today (you can read about the beginnings of open data in Poland in our article from 5 years ago It’s Open O’clock!).

So in 2020 we started talking about Transparent Data as a data software house. We found a niche. Companies operating in Poland no longer needed only raw data from commercial registers. In addition to business continuity requirements, strict SLA and high-quality data, more and more entities began to contact us with the need to create personalized company reports that answer specific questions, with the need to automate entire processes, the need to integrate our data with data from their own legacy systems, the need to build data-driven applications.

It became clear to us that enterprises need not only data, but also software.

Transparent Data products and services in 2013

At the moment, Transparent Data offers:

• API packages with economic information on Polish companies that add value not only with the data themselves, but also with a number of ready-made methods that help consume this data in various ways. You will find API KRS, CEIDG, REGON, White List, SUDOP, financial statements, risk assessment reports and commercial reports, consumer bankruptcy, AML (ultimate beneficial owner, sanction lists, PEP lists), automatic monitoring of companies and land registers;
• Replicas of business registers 360, addressed to companies with their own CRM and data management departments, who want full databases, regularly updated. This allows them to scale their own ideas and applications without increasing costs, and their developers can focus on developing internal software instead of non-core tasks.
• Pre-development services, i.e. consulting workshops with Proof of Concept (PoC) and construction of the MVP prototype. In this way, our clients can safely and quickly validate their ideas for data-driven software and minimize the risk of overpaying for the project. There are a lot of software houses in Poland, but we are the only one who really understands working with data and possible difficulties with their aggregation and ensuring interoperability;
• Software development services — building web and desktop applications that are based on data or support the risk and controlling departments;
• Data services, which are e.g. parsing data, data mining, building relational databases and developing web crawlers.

From startup to data software house

Our path with business information products veered around various ideas.

In 2013, we entered the market as a startup with the economic information platform Prześwietl. As you can read in the interview for 5 years of Transparent Data HERE:

“It started with someone in the west doing something better than us, and we can start doing it better than we do in the west.”

Arkadiusz Hajduk, founder and CEO of Transparent Data

The idea was great: to create an online business intelligence platform that would collect as much data scattered across various registers in one place as possible, so that KYC KYB is convenient, up-to-date and fast.

Later we added APIs from various business registries as larger organizations needed access to data in their own systems.

Then, in 2016–2019, we worked on an API with economic information about foreign companies. We got to know foreign commercial registers of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Slovakia and many other countries. We even set up several web data platforms integrating data from different countries — we dreamed that one day the whole world would be verified on one Transparent Data platform. However, the ambitions were too high for the resources at the time. Nevertheless, there are huge pluses from this experience — we have enriched our level of expertise in working with data from the so-called difficult sources. The various formats of open data available in different countries are just the tip of the iceberg that you can guess. Our knowledge of register data from Europe allowed us to be admitted to FEBIS and conduct conversations as equals with the largest global business information providers.

In the following years, we turned to data software services, which you have already read about. We are developing them to this day and we are successful. It is really satisfying to parse data from tables in pdfs with errors of less than 0.5% and advise companies and startups on their future solutions.

Milestones of Transparent Data’s history

• 2013 — founding of Transparent Data
• 2013 — launch of Prześwietl.pl (SaaS enabling online business intelligence)
• 2015–3rd place for Prześwietl.pl in the DigITal Banking Contest Hannover 2015 competition for the banking product of the future
• 2016 — obtaining the ISO/IEC 27001 certificate (international certification that we apply the highest global standards of security of data processing and services)
• 2016 — launch of the API with economic information from foreign commercial registers
• 2017 — joining the Kaczmarski Group
• 2018 — Transparent Data joins ZPF, the Association of Financial Companies in Poland (then KPF)
• 2019 — launch of Data Integrator (economic data platform dedicated to medium and large companies)
• 2020 — Transparent Data joins FEBIS, the international Federation of Business Information Services, which brings together the best providers of economic data from 7 continents of the world
• 2020 — change of communication to a data software house and the official extension of the product portfolio with software services
• 2021 — Transparent Data becames the official technology partner of Axway in Poland (we are responsible for sales, implementation and integration with one of the best APIM tools in the world, AMPLIFY API Management Platform)
• 2021 — we became a partner of OChK, the National Cloud Operator
• 2021 — we are nominated for the Polish Innovation Award 2021 in the program run by the Polish Entrepreneurship Agency and the editorial staff of Forum Przedsiębiorczości and Biznes Plus in Gazeta Wyborcza
• 2021 — British magazine Daily Finance places Transparent Data on the list of “51 Leading Poland Business Development Firms and Startups — The Future of Business Development”

The coolest things Transparent Data has done (and is doing) that you may not have known about

For years we have been (and not only been) a recognized open data expert in Poland and in the world. In addition to business goals, it has always been important to us to support the security of companies and citizens and the digitization of data.

If there was an interesting, needed initiative, we did not hesitate to “gift” our data or our know-how. It is worth mentioning here e.g. such events as:

• We supported the journalists of Gazeta Wyborcza in a high-profile investigation into the Panama Papers scandal;
• Our CEO, Arkadiusz Hajduk, belongs to the Working Group for strategic data management directions of the Digitization department of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, which used to be the Ministry of Digitization of Poland. Previously, he was a member of the open data working group. We advise state entities on matters relating to the opening of Polish commercial registers;
• Due to our expertise in working with data, in 2018 our CEO represented Polish data providers at the round-table on the PSI Directive at the headquarters of the European Commission;
• We regularly appear at pan-European and Polish conferences and events on register data and open data. We are a social partner of The Future is Data conference, as an expert we also appeared, among others, in at the LegalTech Forum conference for the legal sector in Poland, the Data Quality Management Conference and CDO Summit for data management managers, and the Polish fresh and fantastic DataBeers Silesia;
• We have helped with many open data hackathons, e.g. hackathon of the Central Statistical Office ShowMeData, hackathon Hack Heroes and hackathon Open Data.

Afterword for 10 years of Transparent Data

In 10 years, a lot can happen in a given company and many great faces can pass through it. In the history of Transparent Data, we counted over 100 people — developers, PMs, sellers, marketing specialists, analysts, people who supported the business in various ways. And each and every one of them left something valuable. Something that makes you smile when you come across a given piece of code or an article, just like a man smiles when he finds a gray stone or a fragment of a ticket in the pocket of an old jacket.

In 10 years, the world of economic information and creating software solutions can also change a lot. It is hard to predict where we will be in a decade, especially when we observe the revolution of practical applications of artificial intelligence. However, we are convinced that as long as business is created by people, not machines, the acquisition of high-quality data and their interpretation will continue to be part of our everyday life. As Transparent Data, we hope to accompany you on this journey 🙂