“Above the Trend Line” – Your Industry Rumor Central for 5/28/2019

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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: daniel@insidebigdata.com. Be sure to Tweet Above the Trend Line articles using the hashtag: #abovethetrendline.

Let’s get after it with some new M&A news … DataDirect Networks (DDN), a leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and multi-cloud data management, today announced the successful completion of the acquisition of Nexenta, the market leader in Software Defined Storage (SDS) for 5G and Internet of Things (IoT), creating the Nexenta by DDN division. The acquisition brings three technology powerhouses together; DDN® Storage, Tintri® by DDN and now Nexenta® by DDN, for the benefit of its customers’ AI and multi-cloud data strategies. DDN now holds a suite of products, solutions, and services that enable AI and multi-cloud to deliver the greatest impact to the emerging IoT markets. Sisense, a leader in empowering analytic builders to simplify complex data and provide insights to everyone, announced its merger with Periscope Data, the world’s leading analytics platform for cloud data professionals. Sisense delivers deep expertise in mashing up disparate data sets, building and embedding analytic apps and intuitive data exploration. Companies like GE and Nasdaq rely on Sisense to build operational analytics applications. Periscope Data is used by sophisticated data experts in organizations like Tinder and Flexport for advanced analytics and data science in the cloud.

We also learned of some new funding news … WekaIO, the innovation leader in high-performance, scalable file storage for data-intensive applications, today announced it has closed $31.7 million in a Series C funding round fueled by existing investors and new strategic investors from the storage industry, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Mellanox Technologies, NVIDIA, Seagate, and Western Digital Capital, the strategic investment fund of Western Digital Corp. (WDC), alongside Qualcomm which invested previously. The new funding brings the company’s total capital raised to $66.7 million. WekaIO plans to use the investment primarily to support the continued acceleration of its market trajectory and international business expansion through increased investments in engineering, sales, and marketing, giving WekaIO Matrix™ clear market advantage in addressing data intensive applications at scale in key verticals including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), life sciences, finance and engineering … Locus, a global AI-backed supply chain optimization company, has secured $22 Million in (Series B) funding by Falcon Edge Capital and Tiger Global Management. Previous investors Exfinity Venture Partners and Blume Ventures also took part in this round. After demonstrating successful customer rollouts across sectors in India, the company began expanding to North America and Southeast Asia in 2018. The new round of funding will help Locus penetrate deeper into the new markets by enhancing the product and solutions for each geography and also in expanding local teams. Locus automates human decisions required to transport a package or a person, between any two points on earth, delivering gains along the axes of efficiency, consistency and transparency in operations. The company’s premier logistics optimization solutions include route optimization, real-time tracking of orders, insights and analytics, dynamic sales journey plans, and automated shipment sorting. Locus is focused on solving complex real-world logistics problems like increasing First Attempt Delivery Rate (FADR) for e-commerce companies, sales transformation for global CPG companies, and suggesting optimal fleet mix for 3PL companies … Unravel Data, the only data operations platform providing full-stack visibility and AI-powered recommendations to drive more reliable performance in modern data applications, today announced it has raised $35 million in an oversubscribed Series C funding round. Point72 Ventures, founded by renowned hedge fund investor Steve Cohen, led the round with participation from Harmony Partners, and existing Unravel investors Menlo Ventures, GGV Capital and M12 (formerly Microsoft Ventures).

In new people movement news we learned … DataDirect Networks, a leader in AI and multi-cloud data management, announced that Tom Ellery, a seasoned executive with extensive experience in leadership positions at both public and private organizations such as Brocade, Puppet and EMC, has been appointed to General Manager and Senior Vice President of Field Operations for the Tintri by DDN division … Snow Software, a leader in technology intelligence solutions, announced Richard Anderson has been named Chief Customer Officer. Most recently the Vice President of Worldwide Customer Success at Snow, Anderson will act as the global champion for Snow’s customers, ensuring that their voice and needs continue to be ingrained within every part of the business. Anderson is the first Chief Customer Officer at Snow as well as the first executive to hold that title in the software asset and cloud management market, highlighting the company’s exceptional dedication to its customers.

In the new partnerships, alignments and collaborations category we heard … Databricks, a leader in unified analytics and founded by the original creators of Apache Spark™, and Informatica, an enterprise cloud data management leader, announced a partnership to accelerate the development of intelligent data pipelines. As a result of the partnership, the companies introduced product integrations that provide rapid and efficient data ingestion, simplified creation of high-volume data pipelines, and integrated data governance for intelligent data discovery and end-to-end lineage … GigaSpaces, the provider of InsightEdge, the fast in-memory real-time analytics platform, announced that it has partnered with Informatica, the enterprise cloud data management leader, to deliver an Intelligent Digital Integration Hub across cloud, on-premise and hybrid environments. The solution unifies Informatica’s Hybrid Integration Platform including: Integration Hub and Cloud iPaaS, together with GigaSpaces InsightEdge in-memory real-time analytics and machine learning platform within the Digital hub … Syncsort, a leader in Big Iron to Big Data software, announced seamless data integration with Snowflake Inc., provider of the only data warehouse built for the cloud. The new integration will enable mutual customers to access, transform and deliver critical customer and financial data from the mainframe to Snowflake for advanced analytics. As the system of record for many large organizations, mainframe data provides key insights that support top business use cases such as new market promotions, fraud detection and evaluating credit risk … Splice Machine, provider of the operational artificial intelligence (AI) data platform, announced that it has partnered with Informatica®, a leading data integration and Cloud management company, to create a Connector that will remove latency from real-time, operational AI applications and accelerate the journey to AI for the enterprise. The Connector will leverage Informatica’s cloud data management capabilities to accelerate data migration onto Splice Machine’s operational AI data platform, streamlining the ETL process and making it easier to modernize enterprise applications without delay … Io-Tahoe, a pioneer in Smart Data Discovery and AI-Driven Data Catalog products, in its efforts to continue to transform the data discovery market, announced its membership in the OneTrust Data Discovery Partner Program. Io-Tahoe’s integration with OneTrust will help customers populate the results of data discovery scans into the OneTrust Data Inventory & Mapping solution and trigger additional privacy workflows to maintain up-to-date records of processing … Liberty Defense Holdings Ltd., a leader in security and weapons detection solutions, is announcing acceptance into the NVIDIA Artificial Intelligence (AI) inception program, designed to accelerate the growth of select startups that are advancing their industries using AI and Deep Learning (DL). The AI team is utilizing the program’s resources and expertise to advance the automatic detection technology in Liberty’s signature HEXWAVE product. HEXWAVE utilizes graphics processing units (GPUs) for its active 3D imaging technology, and uses AI and DL methods for the automatic detection of threats, such as weapons. The virtual accelerator program provides tools, technology, and expertise to help startups during the stages of product development, prototyping, and deployment. It also offers training from the NVIDIA DL institute, hardware discounts, and grants … SQream and ITMPS announced a strategic partnership to expand the availability of SQream DB in the Korean market. SQream DB is the software-defined GPU-accelerated data warehouse designed for rapidly analyzing massive data stores at a fraction of the cost. ITMPS is a well-established system integrator and business intelligence consultancy in the Korean market for over 15 years. They are also a leading reseller of BI software. SQream and ITMPS collaborated to execute the recently announced agreement between SQream and LG U+, the South Korean cellular carrier owned by LG … Sinequa, a leader in cognitive search and analytics, and Aurexia, a leader in business consulting for financial services, announced a partnership to deliver AI-powered technologies that provide financial institutions with maximum protection and control over sensitive customer data, and deliver a smarter, more robust customer experience by delivering contextual insights. Financial institutions collect massive volumes of data, which can be a double-edged sword. Maintaining significant amounts of customer and portfolio data can provide tremendous opportunities for increased revenue and reduced risks. Yet organizations must comply with stringent regulations such as Dodd Frank (US), MiFID II (EU) and the GDPR (EU). These major regulatory changes heighten the pressure on financial organizations to organize and secure sensitive Non-Public Information (NPI) and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) … Outlier, a pioneer in Automated Business Analysis, announced a strategic partnership and an investment from In-Q-Tel, Inc. (IQT). IQT is the not-for-profit strategic investor that identifies and accelerates the delivery of innovative technology solutions to support the mission of the U.S. intelligence and defense agencies that keep our nation safe. This strategic partnership reinforces that Outlier is a leader in Automated Business Analysis. It further validates the company’s artificial intelligence platform in supporting the operational requirements of U.S. government agencies for analysis of cloud-based and on-premise data sets.


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