What Charles River Data does

Charles River Data is a private, boutique data science consulting firm founded in 2021 by Gleb Drobkov (ex-BCG GAMMA) and Mike Dezube (ex-Google), both Cornell graduates, and headquartered in Boston. Operating as a remote-first organization, the firm delivers bespoke AI/ML, optimization, and data engineering projects to enterprise and mid-market clients across insurance, healthcare, biotech, real estate, manufacturing, private equity, and retail/consumer goods. Its service catalog is organized around six named practice areas — Personalized Marketing, Optimization, Fraud Detection, Geoanalytics, Image Recognition, and Natural Language Processing — supplemented by data pipeline engineering, statistical and causal analysis, and financial modeling. Engagements are structured on a project-level or ongoing basis; the firm carries no packaged software product and captures demand through an inbound 'Get Started' web form and direct email ([email protected]). Channels are direct-only, with no resellers or marketplaces, supported by organic content presence on a Medium blog, LinkedIn, and Crunchbase.

The firm's underlying technology is a fit-for-purpose, Python-centric stack — Apache Airflow for orchestration, Google BigQuery and PostgreSQL for warehousing, DBT for transformation, and Looker for visualization — deployed flexibly across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. It holds a certified Gurobi service partnership for mathematical optimization, has built a proprietary LLM for insurance claims fraud detection, and applies computer vision for OCR and lab-report transcription. Scale metrics indicate production-grade deployments: 1 trillion records processed, 600 million real estate transactions modeled, 1 TB of hydrology data served at sub-second latency, and 2 million API calls per week on deployed models. Founder pedigree (Google Search, BCG GAMMA) anchors the firm's brand positioning around hard-to-hire senior data talent.

Disclosed case-study clients span a National Flood Insurance Provider, a regional medical spa and injectables clinic chain, a biotech firm, a tire manufacturer serving surface mining operations, a PE-backed regional aesthetician chain, a global ice-cream CPG manufacturer, a national luxury retail/e-commerce group, and a PE-backed restaurant holding company. The customer mix is enterprise-anchored across insurance, healthcare, life sciences, retail, and PE-backed consumer services, with revenue generated through professional-services fees paid by clients for project-level and ongoing consulting engagements.

Name

Charles River Data

Legal name

Charles River Data

Website

https://charlesriverdata.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2021

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Charles River Data is a Boston-based, remote-first boutique data science consulting firm founded in 2021 by ex-Google and ex-BCG GAMMA data scientists. It delivers bespoke AI/ML, optimization, and data engineering projects to enterprise and mid-market clients across insurance, healthcare, biotech, manufacturing, private equity, and retail.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Data Science Consulting

NAICS

Management Consulting Services (54161), Custom Computer Programming Services (541511)

SIC

Services-Management Consulting Services (8742), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Customer, Marketing & Sales Consulting (BPAHACAG)

akta.pro secondary industries

ERP, CRM & Enterprise Applications Consulting (BPAHAEAI), CRM Data Quality, Enrichment & CDP-Adjacent CRM (HDAEAFAJ)

Keywords

• Data science consulting
• Machine learning services
• Predictive analytics consulting
• AI engineering services
• Operations research consulting

Headquarters

HQ city

Boston

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Bespoke Data Science Consulting: Charles River Data provides bespoke data science solutions delivered by top talent on a project-level or ongoing basis. Revenue is generated through consulting engagements where CRD teams work alongside client organizations to solve critical business problems, focusing on long-term impact through experimentation and data-driven decisions. Projects span use cases including personalized marketing, optimization, fraud detection, image recognition, NLP, geo-analytics, and ML-driven decision tools. The firm also offers apprenticeship/upscaling engagements where client team members work alongside CRD on special projects.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Charles River Data is a boutique data science consulting firm that delivers bespoke AI and machine learning solutions to enterprise and mid-market clients. Engagements span six practice areas — Personalized Marketing, Optimization, Fraud Detection, Geoanalytics, Image Recognition, and Natural Language Processing — delivered by senior practitioners through project-level or ongoing consulting arrangements using a Python-centric, cloud-native technology stack. The firm does not sell packaged software; revenue is generated through custom engagements where CRD teams work alongside client organizations to solve specific operational and analytical problems.

Product overview

Charles River Data is a data science consulting firm offering bespoke AI and data science solutions delivered by top talent from Google and BCG GAMMA. The company does not sell a packaged software product; rather, it provides project-level and ongoing consulting engagements across six core practice areas: Personalized Marketing, Optimization (Gurobi-certified partner), Fraud Detection (LLM-based claims analysis), Geoanalytics, Image Recognition (computer vision and OCR), and Natural Language Processing. These consulting services are complemented by supporting capabilities in data pipeline development, statistical/causal analysis, and financial modeling. All engagements are delivered through a remote-first team using a fit-for-purpose technology stack (Python, Apache Airflow, Google BigQuery, DBT, Looker, PostgreSQL) aligned to each client's existing infrastructure.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Bespoke Data Science Consulting Services Custom data science consulting engagements delivered by senior practitioners on a project-level or ongoing basis, focusing on practical AI solutions that scale with high-growth enterprise and mid-market clients across insurance, healthcare, biotech, real estate, manufacturing, private equity, and retail. Includes apprenticeship/upscaling engagements where client team members work alongside CRD.

Quantifiable outcome

• 2M API calls/week for deployed models
• +7 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments9 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability10 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Gurobi OptimizationcoreTechnology or IntegrationCRD is a certified Gurobi service partner. Gurobi provides the mathematical optimization solver that CRD uses to help clients with mixed integer, quadratic, and linear programming optimization solutions. This partnership enables CRD to offer enterprise-grade optimization services for complex business problems including procurement optimization and manufacturing scheduling.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• BCG GAMMA: BCG's dedicated data science and AI consulting arm — direct lineage to CRD (co-founder Gleb Drobkov was a BCG GAMMA consultant). Competes for the same Fortune 500 AI/data engagements from within a global consulting platform.
• McKinsey QuantumBlack: McKinsey's AI and data science consulting arm — competes with CRD for enterprise AI strategy and data engineering engagements at the C-suite level, drawing on similar elite talent branding.
• Accenture Applied Intelligence: Global SI practice for enterprise AI/data engineering and at-scale ML deployment — competes with CRD on large transformation engagements and can out-resource on multi-million-dollar programs.
• Deloitte AI: Big Four AI/data consulting arm delivering enterprise-scale ML, NLP, and computer vision programs to regulated industries (insurance, healthcare, life sciences) — directly overlaps CRD's strongest verticals at much larger scale.

Direct peers

• Fractal Analytics: Large, well-funded boutique AI/analytics consultancy that similarly sells bespoke data science, ML, and computer vision solutions to Fortune 1000 enterprises across verticals — the canonical scaled-up version of CRD's model.
• Tiger Analytics: Boutique data science consulting firm delivering AI/ML engineering, optimization, and forecasting solutions to enterprise clients in insurance, retail, CPG, and manufacturing — direct overlap with CRD's vertical specialization and practice areas.
• Tredence: Data science and AI engineering services firm combining consulting with vertical AI accelerators, focused on retail, CPG, manufacturing, and healthcare — overlapping CRD's use case portfolio (demand forecasting, personalization, geoanalytics).
• LatentView Analytics: Public-listed data analytics consulting firm with strong CPG/retail and enterprise AI practices delivering decision-science, forecasting, and personalization engagements comparable to CRD's offerings.
• AbsolutData: AI and analytics services firm providing marketing analytics, customer data unification, and NLP/ML consulting to enterprise clients — close functional match to CRD's customer-centric AI practice areas.
• Mu Sigma: Large analytics and decision sciences consulting firm delivering data-driven decision support across verticals — comparable services model with global delivery, frequently priced against boutique AI consultants like CRD.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/charles-river-data

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments1 record

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Charles River Data