Big data is turning into a big business in downtown Akron, where the data-mining firm Segmint just moved into new offices in the city-owned Hamlin Building.

The 9-year-old company, which moved Jan. 20-21 from One Cascade Plaza, provides data analytics, primarily to banks, savings and loans, and credit unions. CEO Rob Heiser says business is brisk as more banks realize both the value of customer data and his firm’s expertise when it comes to using it.

“We tripled our revenue last year,” Heiser said.

It was a slow year, he joked.

“Revenues quadrupled the year before,” he said.

But as a young company, Segmint can’t keep increasing its revenue fourfold, and Heiser said he’s more than pleased with how it has begun to grow after gaining traction in the past few years.

He didn’t say what those revenues total, or comment on the privately held company’s profitability. But Heiser said banks increasingly turn to his company to help them understand what their customers need and when they need it.

More than 50 banks use Segmint’s services, Heiser said, and customers range in size from $250 million community banks to national and super-regional banks with more than $300 billion in assets.

Banks, to no one’s surprise, have a lot of information about their customers.

Segmint’s expertise is in taking that data and turning it into usable information, including important marketing triggers.

When Segmint gets data from banks, it doesn’t receive names, Social Security numbers or other identifiable information, only a coded ID along with transaction data. And the data does not include specific purchases. Segmint might know that someone shopped at Staples but not what they purchased.

Read the full story at Crain’s Cleveland Business.