Above the Trend Line: your industry rumor central is a recurring feature of insideBIGDATA. In this column, we present a variety of short time-critical news items grouped by category such as M&A activity, people movements, funding news, industry partnerships, customer wins, rumors and general scuttlebutt floating around the big data, data science and machine learning industries including behind-the-scenes anecdotes and curious buzz. Our intent is to provide you a one-stop source of late-breaking news to help you keep abreast of this fast-paced ecosystem. We’re working hard on your behalf with our extensive vendor network to give you all the latest happenings. Heard of something yourself? Tell us! Just e-mail me at: [email protected]
Let’s get started with some new funding news … Sentra, a cloud data security company, announced the completion of a $30 million Series A funding round led by Standard Investments with participation from Munich Re Ventures (MRV), Moore Strategic Ventures, Xerox Ventures and INT3 as well as existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners and Zeev Ventures. The new financing, secured just 18 months after the company was founded, brings the total capital raised to over $53 million … Crux, an end-to-end data integration, transformation, and observability solution, has disrupted the external data integration space with record-breaking bookings in 2022, continued recognition by prominent industry partners such as Google, and $50M in additional previously unannounced venture funding led by Two Sigma and the Growth Equity business Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Goldman Sachs) for a total of $157M raised to date … Coho AI, the product-led revenue platform, secures $8.5 million in seed funding led by Eight Roads, TechAviv, and a select group of angel investors, including company co-founder Ariel Maislos, Shlomo Kremer, Natan Linder, and other high profile founders. The funding round allows Coho AI to further build its platform that accelerates growth for B2B SaaS companies by effectively “lifting the hood” on their customer usage data. Coho AI helps foster a future of product-led growth by putting data at the forefront of decision-making … Cumul.io announced it has raised €10M Series A financing to capture global demand for its low-code embedded analytics platform that drives quicker and more confident business decision-making. The round was led by Hi Inov-Dentressangle, with returning participation from seed investors Axeleo Capital, LRM, and SmartFin … Iris.ai, provider of a leading and award-winning AI engine for scientific text understanding, has been selected by the European Innovation Council to receive €2.4 million of funding in grants and up to €12M in equity investments from the 2022 EIC Fund. Iris.ai was one of just 15% of startups chosen with a female CEO and amongst only 78 successful companies from over 1,000 qualified candidates in a highly competitive selection process.
In M&A activity we heard … McKinsey announced the acquisition of Iguazio, a leader in AI and machine learning, to our firm. With the addition of Iguazio’s technology and a team of more than 70 data and AI experts, McKinsey will be able to dramatically accelerate and scale AI deployments, driving further impact for clients … CoreWeave, a specialized cloud provider built for large-scale GPU-accelerated workloads, announced its acquisition of Conductor Technologies, developer of the Conductor cloud-based task management application that simplifies access to cloud resources at scale … Precisely, a leader in data integrity, announced it has acquired Transerve, a location intelligence and data provider with expertise in spatial data handling, processing and analysis … SupportLogic, the Support Experience (SX™) management platform, announced the acquisition of Emtropy Labs, Inc., a provider of technology that automates quality assurance (QA) for enterprise support centers. Emtropy Labs helps companies to improve agent performance and reduce customer churn by analyzing 100% of customer interactions while enabling coaching loops in near real-time. The Emtropy team will join SupportLogic and its technology will be integrated within the core SupportLogic SX platform … Capacity, the AI-powered support automation platform, announced the acquisition of Textel, a cloud-based texting platform. With the acquisition, Capacity will enhance the end-user customer experience by expanding its capabilities to include AI-powered SMS business texting features … Snowplow, a leader in data creation and behavioral data, announces the acquisition of Sydney-based Poplin Data, Snowplow’s exclusive integration and enablement partner in Australia and New Zealand. The acquisition of the data-specialist consulting firm, which helps organisations achieve a competitive advantage through deployment of sophisticated data-led strategies, has supported customers within the Snowplow ecosystem for six years … In a transformational deal in the litigation analytics space, Pre/Dicta, the only litigation analytics platform that makes predictions about the outcome of federal lawsuits, has acquired Gavelytics, the pioneering judicial analytics platform for state court cases. The purchase, the terms of which were not disclosed, dramatically shortens Pre/Dicta’s timeline for creating a tool that offers instant and accurate predictions for state courts across the country.
In the customer wins category we learned … Couchbase, Inc. (NASDAQ: BASE), the cloud database platform company, announced that Cinesite, an award-winning digital entertainment studio behind blockbusters such as “Wakanda Forever” and “No Time to Die,” has selected Couchbase to power its production pipeline. Using Couchbase Server, Cinesite will enable artists at its studios around the world to collaborate on large scale visual effects (VFX) and animation projects. The result will be a truly global production pipeline that can complete projects quickly, efficiently and to the highest quality … Hammerspace, a pioneer of the global data environment, announced that Mathematic Studio has deployed Hammerspace to enable global collaboration between its creative artists across multiple studios in different countries … Altair (Nasdaq: ALTR), a global leader in computational science and artificial intelligence (AI), has signed a multiyear campuswide license agreement with TU Delft, the Netherlands’ oldest and largest public technical university which is ranked 10th for engineering and technology in the QS World University Rankings. Under the new license, more than 25,000 students and 6,000 employees in various departments at TU Delft will benefit from an available pool of 1 million Altair Units, which will enable them to access Altair’s comprehensive portfolio of simulation, data analytics, AI, and high-performance computing software solutions … Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH), a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process services, announced a new,10-year services agreement valued at approximately $1 billion with CoreLogic®, a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider … Datadobi, the global leader in unstructured data management, today announced that financial and insurance service leader, Retraites Populaires, Invested in its StorageMAP platform as the foundation for its tech refresh and datacenter transformation. With StorageMAP, Retraites Populaires was able to move 18 years of production and archive data into its new IT environment quickly, safely, and affordably, while ensuring critical end-to-end chain of custody.
We also have a number of new partnerships, alignments and collaborations … Domino Data Lab, provider of a leading Enterprise MLOps platform trusted by over 20% of the Fortune 100, is expanding and strengthening its partner channel through a partnership with TD SYNNEX, an industry-leading, global IT distributor and solutions aggregator. Domino’s enterprise MLOps platform is now available through TD SYNNEX’s global technology distribution and aggregation services to help enterprises in more than 100 countries scale data science quickly and with ease … Spectra Logic, a leader in data management and data storage solutions, announced a partnership with Wasabi Technologies, the hot cloud company, that integrates Wasabi cloud storage with the Spectra Vail® unified data management solution. With the integration, Spectra Vail customers can now take advantage of Wasabi’s low-cost storage service, with no fees for egress or API requests, to further optimize data storage costs and accessibility across cloud and on-premises infrastructure … Gemini Data, provider of the leading no-code graph data platform, and Neo4j®, the world’s leading graph data platform, announced a partnership that will simplify and accelerate the graph data journey. With Neo4j and Gemini Explore™, companies can rapidly expand the use of powerful graph technology throughout the enterprise to quickly discover unseen business opportunities … Fluree, which has developed a graph ledger database and data pipeline toolset for trusted-, interoperable-, secure-data management and sharing, announced a partnership with Fabric. Fabric is a fintech company based in Santa Monica, California, which uses Fluree technology to enable consumers to control and monetize their own personal data. Fabric removes “middleman” companies such as Facebook and Google that currently collect consumer data and sell it to advertisers without express permission of the individuals in question. That system has exploited people for years, benefitting corporations at the expense of those whose data they’re using … KX, maker of kdb+, the time series database and real-time analytics engine, and EnterpriseWeb, a pioneer in telecom virtualization and automation, have partnered to deliver network observability and automation solutions for performance-critical systems … Data lineage platform MANTA, and Prolifics, a leader in digital engineering and digital innovation consulting, announced a global expansion of their strategic partnership. Building on their long-standing work together, the partnership will equip Prolifics’ clients with MANTA’s data lineage expertise to support a range of digital transformation projects … Crisp, an innovative retail data collaboration platform, announced a new partnership and integration with Databricks, the lakehouse company, to expand retail data access and analytical capabilities. With this partnership, joint customers can access the latest retailer point-of-sale and supply chain data directly from their lakehouse utilizing the Delta Sharing feature to improve supply chain forecasting, prevent out-of-stocks (OOS), and expand distribution across retailers.
In people movement news we have … Gigamon, a leading deep observability company, announced that Chaim Mazal has been named Chief Security Officer (CSO). Mr. Mazal, who recently landed on Lacework’s 50 CISOs to Watch list, joins the Gigamon executive leadership team and will report directly to Shane Buckley, president and CEO of Gigamon. Mr. Mazal will be responsible for global security, information technology, network operations, governance, risk, compliance, and internal business systems, as well as the security of Gigamon product offerings … Hazelcast, Inc., home of the real-time stream processing platform, announced the hiring of Jakki Geiger as its chief marketing officer (CMO). Trusted by the Global 2000 to thrive in the Real-Time Economy, Hazelcast is coming off a third straight year of double-digit growth based on rapidly-increasing demand for real-time data solutions that improve customer satisfaction and reduce risk … Coalesce.io, the data transformation company, announced the appointment of John Sedleniek as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) as the company continues its momentous growth since launching from stealth only one year ago. Sedleniek brings more than two decades of high-growth technology sales experience, most recently focused on data replications and integration. In the CRO role, Sedleniek will draw on his past experience to lead sales and drive customer growth and success. He will be responsible for strategy and execution in the core functions of sales, customer adoption, and go-to-market operations … LogicMonitor, provider of the leading SaaS-based unified observability platform for enterprises and managed service providers (MSPs), announced it has hired Taggart Matthiesen as the company’s new Chief Product Officer (CPO) … KX, maker of kdb+, the time series database and real-time analytics engine, announced the appointment of John Hoffman as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Joining from Google, where he was Head of Sales for Data and Analytics, John brings over 20 years of experience in the enterprise software industry, including leadership roles in both start-up organizations and multi-billion-dollar corporations … Splunk appointed a new CFO Brian Roberts. His 30-year career is littered with accomplishments, most notably helping Lyft scale from under $50M in annual revenue to over $3.5B in seven years … Quest Software, a leading global systems management, data protection and security software provider, announced the appointment of three executives that add a wealth of software, finance and business expertise. Quest promoted Carolyn McCarthy to Chief Operating Officer (COO) alongside her current role as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). The company also appointed Matt Deres as Chief Information Officer (CIO) and John Hernandez as GM of the Quest Microsoft Platform Management (MPM) business unit … Matillion, a leader in data productivity, announced the appointment of Tamar Elan as its inaugural Chief People Officer … Nasuni Corporation, a leading provider of file data services, announced the company has expanded its leadership team with the appointment of Pete Agresta to the position of chief revenue officer (CRO). In this role, Agresta will oversee Nasuni’s worldwide sales organization as well as strategic alliances and channel programs to expand and scale the company’s global revenue-generating activities … MemVerge®, pioneers of Big Memory software, announced that Jeffrey Wang has been named Vice President of Engineering. With decades of software-defined infrastructure experience across networking, computing and cybersecurity software industries, Wang will lead the MemVerge engineering organization as it builds out its big memory management technology for cloud workloads and solutions using the Compute Express Link (CXL) memory standard …
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