Thanks to Crunchbase’s downloadable database, we can report that in 2013 investors poured more than $2 billion into Analytic startups, up 38% from 2012. Crunchbase reports 2013 funding for Analytics ventures more than five times greater than in 2009.
Source: Crunchbase
Palantir led the pack in new funding, going to the well twice, in October and December, to raise a total of $304m based on a valuation of $9b. As a point of reference, at 4X revenue, industry leader SAS is worth about $12b.
Funding flowed to companies that build advanced analytics into focused vertical or horizontal solutions. Examples include:
- Ooyala (analytics-driven solutions for video and digital TV): $43m
- WorldOne (global health care data): $35m
- Drillinginfo (oil and gas exploration analytics): $25.1m
- DemandBase (B2B targeted marketing): $15m
- RetailNext (retail in-store analytics): $15m
- Tidemark (performance management): $13m
Investors paid special attention to vendors who specialize in social media analytic platforms:
- DataSift (social media analytics): $42m
- Dataminr (social media analytics): $30m
- Networked Insights:() $9.4m
Capital also flowed to companies offering general-purpose software, platforms and services for analytics, including:
- Arria (natural language generation): $40.3m
- Ayasdi (advanced analytics platform): $30.6m
- Opera Solutions (specialized techniques for analysis of Big Data): $30m
- Fractal Analytics (analytic services provider): $25m
- Skytree (machine learning software): $18m
- Databricks (Apache Spark-based analytics): $14m
- Guavus (streaming analytics): $9m
- Revolution Analytics (analytics based on open source R): $7.8m
Investors continue to fund startups offering easy-to-use interfaces for the business user, including:
Top investors in Analytics for 2013 include:
- Founders Fund (Palantir)
- Lightspeed Venture Partners (Evolv, EdgeSpring, MapR, DataStax, Numerify, Jut)
- Redpoint Ventures (Moogsoft, MapR, Tidemark, Looker, Heap, Datameer)
- Scale Venture Partners (Demandbase, DataStax, DataSift)
- Khosla Ventures (Ayasdi, Evolv, Bidgely, Kyron, ParStream)
Clearly, investors are placing bets on a robust future for analytics.