What Data and Research Center does

Data and Research Center (DARC), legally IDIO Daten Import Export GmbH, is a Berlin-based independent organization founded in 2023 and officially launched in March 2025, providing bespoke data and research services to investigative journalism teams. The company is led by three co-founders — Karina Shedrofsky (Director of Research), Simon Wörpel (Director of Technology), and Jan Strozyk (Director of Data and Journalism Projects) — who previously co-led OCCRP's research and data team, with a six-person core team that includes senior developer Alexandra Ștefănescu, investigative data engineer Shenya De Silva, and a business development fellow. DARC's core technology is OpenAleph, an open-source investigative search platform built on Elasticsearch that aggregates and publishes data from publicly available sources including sanctions lists, PEP databases, and company registries; supporting assets include the FollowTheMoney data engineering standard, the FollowTheGrant scientific publishing conflicts-of-interest database, and the public DARC Library.

The business operates on a hybrid revenue model combining recurring subscriptions and professional services. Revenue streams include managed OpenAleph hosting (monthly subscription on DARC-owned physical servers at Hetzner colocation in southern Germany), the DARC Pack bundle (OpenAleph instance plus monthly research and data hours, six-month initial contract with auto-renewal), managed Keycloak SSO services, on-demand research services billed by the hour (asset tracking, people location, import/export data, website ownership, geolocation of images and videos), and hands-on trainings and workshops covering OSINT, data techniques, and AI in investigations. Pricing is quote-based and not publicly disclosed, with research hours billed monthly and rounded up to the nearest hour. Customers are concentrated in media and civil society, including NDR, OCCRP, CORRECTIV, EIA, FragDenStaat, SPIEGEL/ZDF Frontal/Paper Trail Media, DDoSecrets, and The BMJ, with DARC positioned as a neutral support provider that does not publish stories itself.

Distribution is exclusively direct sales into the investigative journalism community, with no self-service or marketplace channels; go-to-market relies on demonstrated project collaborations, the founders' OCCRP/CORRECTIV/NDR networks, and content marketing through case-study blogs and newsletter outreach. DARC's operating geographies span EMEA with claimed global reach, anchored by major cross-border projects including the Damascus Dossier (with NDR and ICIJ), the Epstein Emails investigation, the Iguana Papers (EIA), EU farm subsidy and security spending databases, and FollowTheGrant's 4.9 million-article medical research analysis. Self-hosted infrastructure is positioned as a cost and security differentiator versus cloud, with management stating equivalent OpenAleph deployments cost approximately one-third as much on owned hardware.

Name

Data and Research Center

Legal name

IDIO Daten Import Export GmbH

Website

https://dataresearchcenter.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2023

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Data and Research Center (DARC) is a Berlin-based independent organization providing bespoke data engineering, research, and open-source investigative search infrastructure to newsrooms, NGOs, and civil society organizations conducting cross-border accountability investigations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Investigative Research Services

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151), Software Publishers (5132)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Data Center Operations & Managed Services (Remote Hands, NOC/SOC) (HDABANAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Managed Colocation & Remote Hands Services (HDABACAD), Managed Application Platforms (App PaaS & Runtime Services) (HDABAAAD)

Keywords

• Investigative research services
• Open-source search platform
• Data engineering
• OSINT investigations
• Document analysis

Headquarters

HQ city

Berlin

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Managed OpenAleph Services: Fully managed OpenAleph hosting on DARC's own infrastructure including setup, security, backups, and technical support. Provides organizations with their own dedicated OpenAleph instance.
2. Research Services: Bespoke research services for investigative teams including tracking assets (real estate, ships, planes, corporate records), locating people and contacts, acquiring import/export data, investigating website ownership, and geolocating images and videos. Billed monthly based on hours worked.
3. DARC Pack Subscription: Bundle offering combining OpenAleph instance with monthly research/data hours. Initial 6-month contract with automatic renewal. Hours can be flexibly allocated between research and data work.
4. Managed SSO Services: Managed Keycloak SSO platform hosting with unlimited realms and accounts, including backups and technical support.
5. Trainings and Workshops: Hands-on training sessions and workshops for investigative teams including OSINT techniques (cryptocurrency tracing, tracking ships/planes, finding people), data techniques (AI in investigations, command line for journalists), hackathons, and multi-week research/data fellowships.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

DARC delivers managed hosting and bespoke data and research services for investigative teams through its OpenAleph open-source search platform and a team of former OCCRP, CORRECTIV, and NDR specialists. Offerings include fully managed OpenAleph instances on self-hosted infrastructure, hour-billed on-demand research (asset tracking, people location, geolocation, corporate records), data engineering and training workshops. Services are packaged as standalone subscriptions (Managed OpenAleph, Managed Keycloak SSO) or bundled into the DARC Pack (OpenAleph plus monthly research hours under a 6-month contract).

Product overview

DARC provides bespoke data and research services for investigative teams through a combination of proprietary tools and service offerings. The core technology is OpenAleph, an open-source investigative search platform for large-scale document and data search. Supporting infrastructure includes FollowTheMoney (data engineering standard) and FollowTheGrant (scientific publication conflict-of-interest database). The service portfolio spans comprehensive research (asset tracking, people location, geolocation), investigative tech (infrastructure setup, custom development), data tooling (scraping, cleaning, analysis), project management support, and training/workshops. DARC operates on a subscription model providing the reliability of an in-house team with flexible, expert-driven support.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Managed OpenAleph Fully managed OpenAleph hosting on DARC's own encrypted physical servers in a German colocation facility. Provides organizations with a dedicated OpenAleph instance including daily backups (30-day retention), email support, and isolated virtual environments.
• DARC Pack Bundle subscription combining a managed OpenAleph instance with monthly research/data hours flexibly allocated between research and data work. 6-month initial contract with automatic renewal and 3-month cancellation notice. Additional hours or day packages available beyond the included allocation.
• Managed SSO (Keycloak)

Quantifiable outcome

• Cloud infrastructure costs approximately 3x more per year than self-hosted setup for large-scale OpenAleph deployments
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability6 records

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Hetzner Online GmbHcoreTechnology or IntegrationPrimary colocation data center provider. DARC runs its own physical servers at Hetzner's facility in southern Germany. All disks are encrypted, instances run in isolated virtual environments, and physical access is controlled. Data Processing Agreement in place.
• Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLong-standing collaboration with Germany's public broadcaster. Jan Strozyk previously worked at NDR's investigative department. Projects include Damascus Dossier (with ICIJ) and ongoing investigative collaborations.
• CORRECTIVcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerGerman non-profit investigative newsroom and long-term collaborator. Multiple joint investigations including 'Die Ökogas-Lüge', court donations database, and cross-referencing of EU datasets.
• Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFounders Karina Shedrofsky and Jan Strozyk previously led OCCRP's research and data team. DARC provides technical support for OCCRP investigations and continues collaborative work on cross-border projects.
• FragDenStaatcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFreedom of information platform and investigative organization. Joint projects include EU farm subsidies database (farmsubsidy.org), ICMPD investigations, and Dokukratie parliamentary documents database.
• Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerInternational NGO focused on environmental investigations. DARC provided OpenAleph infrastructure for EIA's 'Iguana Papers' / 'Crude Lies' investigation into Ecopetrol, Colombia's state oil company.
• Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNon-profit specializing in publishing leaked and hacked datasets. DARC supports the Library of Leaks project, making leaks searchable via OpenAleph. DDoSecrets provided the Epstein emails leak.
• SPIEGEL / ZDF Frontal / Paper Trail MediacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerJoint investigation team for Epstein Emails project. Made the leaked emails searchable via OpenAleph. Exposed how Epstein targeted women from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Emerging players

• Code for Africa: Civic technology organization that builds investigative data tools for African newsrooms and civil society. Comparable to DARC in mission, tooling approach (open-source investigative stacks), and reliance on philanthropic and donor funding.
• The Markup: US non-profit data-driven investigative outlet with a comparative small in-house data team. While geographically focused, it demonstrates the model of a small team using bespoke tooling to deliver investigative impact—an analogue for DARC's value proposition.
• Bellingcat: Netherlands-based open-source investigations organization with comparable OSINT, geolocation, and cross-border research offerings. While Bellingcat focuses on conflict and accountability reporting, its hybrid model of in-house tooling plus published investigations is structurally similar to DARC's.
• OpenSanctions: Open-source data platform for sanctions, PEP, and corporate registry matching, directly overlapping with OpenAleph's reference datasets. OpenSanctions sells APIs and hosted datasets to compliance, KYC, and investigative customers—an adjacent monetization path DARC could pursue.
• Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets): Non-profit that publishes and indexes leaked datasets. DARC's Library of Leaks is built around DDoSecrets-hosted material. They are partner-publishers but also a comparable operator in the journalist-facing leaks infrastructure space.

Broad incumbents

• ProPublica: US-based investigative journalism outlet with substantial in-house data and research capacity. Operates a broader portfolio than DARC but exemplifies the merged newsroom-plus-data-team model that DARC's services are designed to enable for smaller organizations.
• Forensic Architecture: Research agency using data engineering, OSINT, and visual methodologies for investigative work. While academically oriented, it represents an adjacent specialist provider of investigative data services with comparable custom-pipeline methodologies to DARC's Damascus Dossier stack.

Direct peers

• CORRECTIV: German non-profit investigative newsroom and DARC's recurring collaborator. Simon Wörpel previously built data infrastructure at CORRECTIV. It maintains in-house data and research capabilities that parallel DARC's service offering for the German-market investigative segment.
• International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ): ICIJ coordinates cross-border investigations such as the Panama Papers, FinCEN Files, and Luxembourg Leaks—projects DARC's founders helped deliver. ICIJ operates its own data and research infrastructure (Datashare) and serves as both a key collaborator and a comparable provider of investigative research support.
• Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP): OCCRP is the global investigative journalism network from which DARC's founders originated and where they previously led the research and data team. It runs internal data engineering and tooling (Aleph) that competes directly with DARC's OpenAleph-managed-services offering for the same newsroom and NGO customer base.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/dataresearchcenter
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/dataresearchcenter

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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

M&A

Investments

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

Frequently asked questions about Data and Research Center