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.
It’s been another couple of wild weeks in the big data ecosystem! Let’s get started with some new funding news … Domino Data Lab, provider of the leading Enterprise MLOps platform trusted by over 20% of the Fortune 100, announced a $100 million funding round led by Great Hill Partners and an expanded partnership with NVIDIA, which is also participating in the round. Domino and NVIDIA will also further integrate products and expand joint sales efforts to support customers’ efforts to build model-driven businesses. The Series F round includes additional participation from existing investors Coatue Management, Highland Capital Partners and Sequoia Capital, and brings the company’s total funding to $228 million … mParticle, a leading customer data infrastructure company, announced that it has raised $150 million in Series E funding, led by Permira’s growth fund which backs leading tech-enabled and digital businesses. The existing investor base also participated in the round alongside new backers including former Adobe CFO Mark Garrett and New England Patriots All-Pro punter Jake Bailey. The funding will support mParticle’s continued global go-to-market expansion, as well as significant R&D investment as demand for customer data infrastructure continues to accelerate. With the round, Daniel Brenhouse, Principal at Permira, will join the mParticle Board of Directors … Neural Magic, the AI company building a software platform for deep learning inference, announced a $30 million Series A funding round led by existing investor NEA with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Amdocs, Comcast Ventures, Pillar VC, and Ridgeline Ventures. This financing brings the company’s total amount raised to $50 million. The new capital will be used to advance Neural Magic’s leadership in pure software machine learning acceleration and to support the success of a growing community of developers … Materialize, the streaming SQL database company, announced $60 million in Series C funding, bringing the company’s total funding to over $100 million. The round was led by Logan Bartlett from Redpoint Ventures, with additional investors including Kleiner Perkins, who led the Series B, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, who led the Series A.The new round of funding occurs against a backdrop of steady business growth for Materialize and shows the strength of the market demand for true real-time data streaming solutions. The funding will be used to further accelerate the development and adoption of Materialize’s industry-leading data streaming technology … Mindee, the API-first platform designed for developers to eliminate manual data entry, has emerged from stealth mode and announces that it has raised a $14 million Series A round led by GGV Capital with participation from Alven, and existing investors Serena Capital and Bpifrance through its Digital Venture fund. Notable executives in the application development space who also participated in the round include the co-founder and former CEO of Algolia, Nicolas Dessaigne and the co-founder and CTO of Datadog, Alexis Lê-Quôc. The funding will be used to expand presence in the U.S. and European markets to further develop both the underlying machine learning engine and platform features. Mindee helps developers automate workflows in their applications by standardizing the document processing layer. Mindee’s API helps companies avoid manual data entry and can be used in expense management, accounts payable automation, procurement, accounting, insurance, user and employee onboarding, loan applications, underwriting, and more … Quantexa, the data and analytics software company pioneering Contextual Decision Intelligence (CDI), announced that BNY Mellon has completed a strategic investment in Quantexa, to close its series D led by Warburg Pincus, a leading global growth investor, and a growing group of blue-chip investors … Speedata,whose Analytics Processing Unit (APU) is designed to accelerate big data analytic workloads across industries, announced a $55 million Series A round led by Walden Catalyst Ventures, 83North, and Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), with participation from existing investors Pitango First, Viola Ventures and prominent individual investors including Eyal Waldman, Co-Founder and former CEO of Mellanox Technologies. Both Waldman and Lip-Bu Tan, Managing Partner of Walden Catalyst Ventures, Chairman, Walden International and CEO, Cadence Design, will join Speedata’s board of directors.This newest funding round brings Speedata’s total amount raised to $70 million, including a previously undisclosed $15 million seed round led by Viola and Pitango. Speedata is building the world’s first dedicated processor for optimizing cloud-based database and analytic workloads, set to disrupt the way analytics and databases are processed in datacenters – crucial in an age of big data … Malbek, a cutting-edge, AI-fueled Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) platform, announce a $15.3 Million Series A funding round led by Noro-Moseley Partners. TDF Ventures and Osage Venture Partners also participated in the round. The transaction highlights strong investor confidence in Malbek’s success. Funding will be used to accelerate the company’s proprietary, patent-pending AI product innovations while continuing to expand across multiple industries, bringing contracting efficiencies to businesses of all sizes … Akkio, developers of an artificial intelligence (AI) platform for non-data scientists, today announced the closing of a seed investment round of $3 million led by Bain Capital Ventures. Akkio is designed for teams without dedicated data science or developer resources. It’s as easy to use as uploading an excel spreadsheet to the cloud. The average training time on a model is as little as one minute, compared to more than an hour using tools from Google, AWS or Microsoft. And even with the short training time, Akkio’s models typically out-perform the cloud giants … Gretel.ai closed a $50 million Series B funding round, led by Anthos Capital, along with participation from Section 32, and existing investors Greylock and Moonshots Capital, bringing the total funding raised to date to $65.5 million. This new funding helps accelerate Gretel’s pioneering work on its Privacy Engineering as a Service platform and suite of tools for developers. The funding will fuel Gretel’s continued innovation with high-quality synthetic data, and expansion into new use cases linked to data privacy.
We also learned of some new M&A activity … Alteryx, Inc. (NYSE: AYX), the Analytics Automation company, announced that it has acquired Hyper Anna, a leading cloud platform for generating artificial intelligence (AI)-driven automated insights from data. Hyper Anna is a Sydney, Australia-based company that enables anyone, regardless of technical background, to access AI-driven insights. The acquisition of Hyper Anna will allow Alteryx to automate the end-to-end analytic pipeline from data sources to AI-driven insights … Databricks, the Data and AI company and a pioneer of the data lakehouse architecture, announced the acquisition of a cutting edge German startup, 8080 Labs. 8080 Labs is the maker of bamboolib, a popular UI-based data science tool that enables fast and easy data exploration and transformation with a matter of clicks, not code. The new UI-driven capabilities will be integrated across Databricks’ Lakehouse Platform, marking the company’s expansion into the low-code/no-code space. The strategic acquisition broadens the accessibility of its lakehouse platform to a wider audience of citizen data scientists and data team personas, enabling further democratization of data and AI throughout the enterprise. The terms of the deal were not disclosed … 6sense, a leading account engagement platform, announced the acquisition of Slintel, a leading provider of business-driven technographic data, buyer and market insights, and modern business contact data. Following the company’s recent acquisition of Fortella and 114% year-over-year revenue growth, the acquisition of Slintel reaffirms 6sense’s commitment to leading the RevTech RevolutionTM by providing the foundational data sales and marketing teams need to achieve predictable revenue growth … insightsoftware, a global provider of enterprise software solutions for the Office of the CFO, announced it has acquired Exago, a premier embedded BI solution providing leading companies with seamless integration for customer facing web applications. This acquisition further establishes Logi Analytics, a division of insightsoftware, and Exago’s common vision of simplifying the process for business professionals to access and manipulate their data, no matter their technical capabilities … Otonomo, (Nasdaq: OTMO), a leading provider of a pioneering vehicle data platform and marketplace, announced that it has acquired Neura, Inc, (Neura), a leader in AI-powered Mobility Intelligence. Otonomo acquired 100% of Neura outstanding equity interests. Otonomo expects this acquisition to expedite Otonomo’s growth and to contribute positively to Otonomo’s revenue moving forward. Otonomo’s newly expanded mobility intelligence platform will leverage Neura’s advanced analytics powered by patented Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies, and diverse multi-layered data … Celonis, the global leader in execution management, announced a series of investments in data, intelligence and action to expand the execution management landscape and enable every organization in the world to execute on their data.These announcements include the acquisition of Lenses.io, a pioneer in the fast growing streaming data industry; the launch of the Celonis Execution Graph, a breakthrough technology that provides intelligence across business processes; and plans to enter into a strategic partnership with Conexiom, the leader in sales order automation to help customers seamlessly automate complex order management processes … Eagle Eye Networks, a leader in cloud video surveillance, announced the acquisition of artificial intelligence leader Uncanny Vision, accelerating the company’s leadership in providing AI and analytics to make customers’ businesses more efficient and the world a safer place. The acquisition also includes research and development capabilities and a new regional office in Bangalore, India … Qlik® announced the acquisition of Big Squid, a leading provider of no-code automated machine learning (AutoML), to expand data and analytics teams’ ability to leverage advanced augmented analytics capabilities such as key driver analysis, predictive analytics and what if scenario planning with API deployable AI models for on-demand predictions directly within Qlik. Combining Big Squid with Qlik’s existing augmented analytics capabilities – which already include direct API integrations with 3rd party engines and the integrated intelligent AI assistant Insight Advisor – expands the industry’s most robust augmented analytics capabilities suite for cloud analytics. Acquiring Big Squid also further advances Qlik’s vision of Active Intelligence, where technology and processes trigger immediate action from real-time, up-to-date and trusted data to accelerate business value across the entire data and analytics supply chain.
For new customer wins, we heard … Fluree, a provider of a Web 3.0-enabled immutable semantic graph data platform, announced it will power One Donation’s cloud-based charitable giving platform, which allows employees to find and donate to their favorite charities directly through payroll deduction. One Donation will leverage Fluree’s powerful database capabilities with blockchain features to provide a transparent and tamper-resistant platform for charitable giving. By connecting employees to more than 1.7 million nonprofits throughout the United States, One Donation removes the friction from the giving process while assuring donors that their contribution goes where they intended … Software intelligence company Dynatrace (NYSE: DT) announced Wiley is using the Dynatrace® platform to accelerate digital innovation. Wiley has been a leader in research and education for more than 200 years, helping learners, institutions, and corporations achieve their goals. As the industry and job market rapidly evolve, there is increased demand for Wiley’s extensive digital resources. These include online platforms that get peer-reviewed research to market faster, adaptive courseware and online education, and professional learning content and services, including job training, placement, and databases. To keep pace with customer needs, the company migrated to a cloud-native architecture, including Kubernetes and serverless compute services. With this transition came increased complexity, brought by the continuous change and volume, velocity, and variety of data across this dynamic multicloud environment. With Dynatrace, Wiley’s technology teams have deep observability and advanced AIOps that automatically and continuously discovers the company’s entire technology stack and processes its billions of dependencies, in real time. This has saved these teams from wasting time on manual effort, so they can focus on driving innovation.
In the new partnerships, alignments, and collaborations department we have … Pearl, a leader in dental AI and computer vision solutions for efficiency, accuracy, transparency and patient care, and Midway Dental, one of the leading dental technology and supply distributors in the United States, announced a partnership that will add Pearl’s Practice Intelligence® AI solution to Midway’s cutting-edge product sales and distribution inventory. The partnership will offer Midway’s 15,000 dental customers a clear entry point to dentistry’s future with Pearl’s industry-leading, AI-powered clinical performance software … Moogsoft, the AIOps pioneer and observability leader, announced its partnership with monitoring solution provider IRIS Network Systems. Through this partnership, Moogsoft will enhance IRIS’s monitoring solution with AIOps capabilities, such as noise reduction, anomaly detection and insight enrichment. IRIS builds scalable monitoring systems that provide real-time alerting, reporting and troubleshooting for maximum network and infrastructure visibility. IRIS, which has an international footprint, is expanding into additional markets in Africa as it expands its AIOps service offerings through its partnership with Moogsoft … KX, a leader in real-time streaming analytics, announced that it has partnered with Telit, a global enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT), to deliver an end-to-end, enterprise-grade industrial analytics platform that combines KX’s real-time streaming analytics capabilities with Telit’s deviceWISE® Industrial IoT platform.The partnership enables true, in-the-moment microsecond decision making by bringing together acknowledged leaders in low-latency connectivity and analytics. In one integrated solution, customers have both the unrivalled connectivity and simplicity of Telit’s deviceWISE IoT platform and the power of KX’s streaming analytics technology … MicroSys Electronics announced its partnership with leading AI (Artificial Intelligence) chipmaker Hailo to launch its miriac® AIP-LX2160A embedded platform hosting up to 5 integrated Hailo-8™ AI accelerator modules. The new edge server-grade AI solution enables high-performance and scalable AI inference capabilities at the edge. The new, application-ready AI platform offers industries a high bandwidth and power-efficient solution at the edge, benefiting a wide range of applications in Industry 4.0, automotive, heavy machinery, and more … Anaconda, Inc., provider of the popular data science platform, announced a partnership with Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, to further enable the Python community. As part of the Snowflake partnership, Snowflake Ventures has also invested in Anaconda. This partnership will allow data scientists, engineers, and developers to build secure and scalable Python data pipelines and machine learning workflows with the latest open-source innovation. With the growing adoption of Python for data engineering and data science workloads, Snowflake’s investment in Anaconda is a step toward providing users of the Data Cloud effortless access to the most popular Python open-source packages while ensuring the security and governance Anaconda is known for … Synaptics® Incorporated (Nasdaq: SYNA) announced a partnership with Edge Impulse, the leading development platform for machine learning on edge devices. The partnership combines Synaptics’ Katana™ Ultra Low-Power Edge AI Platform with the Edge Impulse software development platform used by thousands of embedded developers to create, train and deploy custom models for a wide range of AI applications … Datavail, a tech-enabled data management, applications and business intelligence solutions provider, announced its partnership with MariaDB Corporation, a leading cloud database provider. This strategic partnership supports highly scalable solutions for all Datavail’s clients, and the partnership between Datavail and MariaDB demonstrates Datavail’s commitment as a database services provider … Gurobi Optimization, LLC – which produces the mathematical optimization solver, the Gurobi Optimizer – announced it has been selected by supply chain software solution provider Aftermarket Analytics as its exclusive mathematical optimization solver. This partnership will embed the Gurobi Optimizer as a key component of the Aftermarket Analytics’ Supply Chain Optimization (SCO) platform, therefore providing access to the most flexible and robust supply chain optimization solution on the market. Data scientists, business analysts, and operations research professionals have complex roles and requirements – and they must be able to customize their applications while avoiding internal barriers, approvals, and extensive education. In a market with large players and limited competition, the Gurobi and Aftermarket Analytics partnership introduces an easy-to-use solution for those building and deploying SCO applications – maximizing value and increasing ROI … Alteryx, Inc. (NYSE: AYX), the Analytics Automation company, and UiPath (NYSE: PATH), a leading enterprise automation software company, announced the expansion of their strategic partnership and new integrations with a connector as part of Alteryx’s recent product release. Together, Alteryx APA + UiPath Robotic Process Automation (RPA) eases the process of digital transformation by unlocking the value from enterprise data. As organizations modernize their infrastructure, data can remain trapped in legacy systems and other sources that lack the necessary APIs for access. Thanks to RPA, organizations with repetitive processes involving data residing in homegrown, older, or non-API systems can now achieve faster time to insights and reduce the risk of error.
In the people movement category we learned … SoftIron Ltd., a leader in purpose-built and performance-optimized data infrastructure solutions, announced the appointment of Kenneth Van Alstyne to the position of Chief Technology Officer. Van Alstyne will be tasked with building out SoftIron’s technology strategy and roadmap as the company advances its mission to re-engineer performance and efficiency in modern data infrastructure through its task-specific, open source-based solutions … Datometry, the pioneer in database virtualization, is pleased to announce that it has added Chris Ré, founder of innovative technology startups, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University, and data management expert, to its advisory board.Prof. Ré joins Datometry with a deep understanding of technology and market dynamics around data management. Ré has co-founded several companies based on his research into machine learning including SambaNova, Snorkel, as well as Lattice and Inductiv, which are now part of Apple. Chris Ré joins a group of distinguished advisors at Datometry, including Amy Chang, Sanjay Krishnamurthi of Microsoft, and Prof. Joe Hellerstein of UC Berkeley … Digital.ai announced that Jeff Moloughney has been named Chief Marketing Officer, effective October 1, 2021. Moloughney will report directly to Digital.ai’s Chief Executive Officer, Stephen Elop … Cohesity, a leader in next-gen data management, announced the appointment of Kevin Delane as chief revenue officer. He brings more than 30 years of relevant experience working for high-growth technology companies. Delane has a strong track record in business development, go-to-market, sales operations, international sales, strategic alliances, and partner management. Delane will leverage his vast experience in these areas to oversee the sales and partner functions worldwide at Cohesity … Arturo, an AI-powered platform that derives property insights and predictive analytics from aerial and satellite imagery, has tapped attorney Tracy Shiflet, as its new general counsel. Shiflet joins Arturo with almost three decades of legal experience and will be responsible for establishing Arturo’s legal function and compliance to support the company’s market acceleration … Brightflag, the AI-powered legal operations management platform, announced the appointments of Ingrid Wallace as Vice President of People and Michael Scarpelli as Vice President of Finance … Percona, a leader in open source database software and services, announced that Donnie Berkholz has joined the company as Senior Vice President, Product Management, expanding the company’s leadership team. He will be an instrumental part of the company’s transformation from a service-focused company to one that offers open source products with database software, services, and best-practice expertise integrated into their design … CognitiveScale, the Trusted AI Company, announced its new leadership team, starting with the appointment of former IBM Senior Vice President Robert J. Picciano as its new Chief Executive Officer. In addition to Mr. Picciano, the company is also announcing the appointments of its new Chief Revenue Officer, Mike McQuaid, its new VP of Marketing, Bart Peluso, the promotion of Gopal Krishnan to Senior Vice President of Engineering and Delivery and the transition of Akshay (Shay) Sabhikhi to Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Sabhikhi, a Cofounder, was most recently CEO at the organization, a role he held for more than seven years.
Deep Learning Patent Update – provided by Nelson E. (Nick) Brestoff, J.D., M.S. Exec. Manager & Chief Inventor, Intraspexion LLC.
ionir announced the approval of a U.S. patent for its system of synchronizing data containers and improving data mobility. This patent underscores ionir’s efforts to help organizations achieve data agility and optimize their enterprise implementations of Kubernetes. As Kubernetes adoption increases, one barrier remains: data cannot be moved quickly. Unlike apps, transporting data across clusters, clouds, and geographies can take hours or days. Kubernetes promises enterprises the freedom to run apps wherever makes the most sense, coupled with reduced operational complexity, and lower costs. However, left unresolved, data gravity threatens the entire Kubernetes value proposition. The issued patent describes ionir’s technology and approach to overcome data gravity, allowing application data to move with the ease of applications. Data mobility ensures the application can start working immediately at the new location.
Datatron has received a new U.S. patent for its methodology for modeling machine learning and analytics, the company announced today. This expands Datatron’s patent portfolio for machine learning (ML) methods and technologies in a production environment, including data extraction, training of the model and predicting of the module. To view the patent, visit https://tinyurl.com/ejnh4vph.
Join us on Twitter: @InsideBigData1 – https://twitter.com/InsideBigData1
Sign up for the free insideBIGDATA newsletter.
Speak Your Mind