Data Duopoly

Tanavi Ethanandan and her co-founder Erin Morris came up with the idea while frustrated by their own experience at visitor attractions. "Everyone's been there. They've had an exciting day out. They go to the visitor center and see the sign turn left. You end up following the same set of people around the whole site when actually there's loads of space around the site, but you just didn't know." They saw a gap: visitor attractions had no way to guide people to less busy areas, wasting potential revenue from concessions and improving visitor experience. They incorporated in October 2019, just months before the world would shut down.

Tanavi, a Cambridge University economics graduate and chartered accountant from Ernst & Young, isn't a technical founder. "We actually used contractors," she explains. "It was actually when we did our MVP. That was probably really early on. It was a really ugly manual prototype." Development started in early 2019, with contractors handling the code while Tanavi focused on business and financial strategy and Erin, an award-winning film director, led product design and UX. The team kept costs lean by hiring a full-stack developer in the Philippines at £2,000 per month, found through direct connection via LinkedIn and AngelList.

Their first paying customer was the National Trust Cornish TINCOs partnership—a collection of three World Heritage mining sites in Cornwall. "We actually had conversations with the project manager early on. They were really excited about what we do. Then COVID hit." The timing was paradoxical: lockdown devastated venue attendance, but it also made the value proposition crystal clear. Venues suddenly needed to understand where their visitors were, what areas were busy, and how to guide them. They secured a £250,000 seed round during COVID, backed by the European Space Agency, aerospace organizations, and angel investors. The funding came with equity dilution: the accelerator that brought the co-founders together kept 24.9%, seed investors took 10%, leaving Tanavi and Erin with about 66% ownership.

Data Duopoly's model is subscription-based, charging venues a fixed 12-month license fee (around £30,000 annually for medium-sized venues with 250,000+ annual visitors) rather than per-visitor pricing. This was intentional: "There's not going to be that sort of self-promotion to get the most out of the data obtained" if venues are charged per user. The real value lies in behavioral incentives. They can tell visitors: "Do you want a half price coffee at the quiet cafe over there?" or offer discounts for less popular times. This drives foot traffic away from congestion while increasing concessionary spend. They now serve three paying customers and are using case studies to demonstrate ROI—showing how understanding visitor dwell time can increase on-site spending.

With six employees (soon seven) and a runway of 8–9 months, Data Duopoly is aggressively pursuing growth through trade shows like the Visitor Attractions Conference in London and Family Attractions Expo in Birmingham. They're also piloting with university campuses, adapting their technology to help students and staff navigate campuses. Current ARR sits at around £36,000 (roughly $45,000 USD) from three customers, though Tanavi was cautious about exact figures, focusing instead on growing the sales pipeline. They plan to raise an EIS-funded Series A round to scale further. As Tanavi, now 27, reflected: "The aim is to get that customer base and get that recurring revenue up."