This Week in Data Preparation (November 23, 2020)
This weekly post with news items from the data preparation market is brought to you by The Data Value Factory, the company offering Data Preparer.
13 links in this week’s post: 4 articles (on data democratization, big data challenges, data analytics, and data warehousing, by WebPT, Lighthouse eDiscovery, Genuity Science, and SnapLogic), 2 surveys (on the use of AI, by McKinsey, and on getting data analytics projects to production, by Matillion and IDG Research), 2 company updates (by Stradigi AI, and Informatica), 3 capital raise announcements (by DataRobot, Nozzle.ai, and harbr), and 2 acquisitions (Ascent acquires Mango solutions, Mphasis acquires Datalytyx).
Articles
Let Data Democratization Power Your Business. “Although the work world remains in flux, one truth has held fast throughout the pandemic: innovation is the name of the game.” said Jason Heath, CFO at WebPT in this article for CMSWire.
The Sinister Six…Challenges of Working with Large Data Sets. Nick Schreiner, Director Solutions Architecture at Lighthouse eDiscovery, outlines some of the specific challenges we’ll continue to face in our “new normal”.
The role of a data-analytics director in genomic discovery. Irene Blat, a senior director at Genuity Science, discusses how the intersection of data, engineering, genetics and more will be crucial to the future of healthcare.
Why effective data warehousing is critical in today’s data-driven economy. Brad Drysdale, field CTO at SnapLogic, shares his insights in this article for DataCentreNews.
Surveys
Pioneering companies use AI to drive profit. The results of this year’s McKinsey global survey, The state of AI in 2020, suggests that organisations are using artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool for generating value. Commenting on the findings, Michael Chui, partner at McKinsey Global Institute, said: “What we’ve said in the past about ‘following the money’ to find where AI adds value in organisations still holds true.
Survey: 97% of Enterprises Seek to Accelerate Data Transformation, with Time Spent on Data Preparation A Barrier to Insights-Driven Decision-Making. “There is clearly still a struggle for enterprises to perform data transformation faster to provide the business with analytics-ready insights, said Matthew Scullion, CEO at Matillion.
Company Updates
Stradigi AI Launches the Kepler™ AI Platform Powered by Microsoft Azure. “Every company with data has the ability to leverage machine learning. They can’t afford to sit on a wealth of game-changing insights and not put it to use. What has been missing is the right tool. Kepler provides this capability,” said Per Nyberg, Chief Commercial Officer, Stradigi AI. Sajan Parihar, Senior Director, Microsoft Azure Platform at Microsoft Corp said, “We’re pleased to welcome Stradigi AI to the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, which gives our partners great exposure to cloud customers around the globe.”
Informatica Expands Data Governance Support For The Snowflake Data Cloud. “Data governance is really front and center,” said Rik Tamm-Daniels, Informatica vice president of strategic ecosystems and technology, speaking about the Informatica announcement in an interview with CRN.
Capital Raise Announcements
DataRobot Announces $270M in Funding Led by Altimeter Capital. “The massive secular tailwinds driven by data, the cloud, and business intelligence have been central to our most significant investments in the last decade — and yet we are just getting started,” said Brad Gerstner, Founder and CEO, Altimeter Capital. “We’re seeing overwhelming demand for our platform. This latest round of financing further validates this momentum, and we intend to use it to accelerate our rapid growth globally,” said Dan Wright, President & COO of DataRobot.
Nozzle.ai raises $2.6m to accelerate adoption of AI platform. Victor Malachard, Nozzle.ai Co-Founder and Executive Chairman said, “This funding will help us reach new retailers and further support our existing clients in addressing the challenges and opportunities of selling and advertising in a competitive and fast-growing marketplace.”
Harbr raises $38.5M to help enterprises exchange and share big data troves securely. “Back in 2017 no one was talking about enterprise data exchanges,” Harbr’s CSO Anthony Cosgrove (who co-founded the company with Gary Butler, the CEO) told TechCrunch in an interview. “So we worked with big companies to understand their needs and built Harbr based on that.”
Acquisitions
Ascent Dips Into £75M War Chest to Acquire One of the UK’s Largest Data Science Consulting Firms, Mango Solutions. Commenting on the deal, CEO Stewart Smythe said: “We’ve enjoyed a proven working relationship with Mango Solutions for some time now, and are so confident in the quality of their work and their people that we decided to make the partnership permanent.” Rich Pugh, Chief Data Scientist at Mango Solutions, said: “The most exciting thing about joining Ascent is that we will see our vision and expertise become accessible to so many more businesses so much sooner.” Simon Hitchcock, Managing Partner at Horizon Capital, concluded: “Mango is the third acquisition we have made with Ascent since our investment in the business 12 months ago.”
Mphasis Acquires Datalytyx, a DataOps specialist in the Snowflake and Talend ecosystem. “Every enterprise needs the ability to turn raw data into actionable information at scale, the recent worldwide crisis has only accelerated this need. Data and analytics combined with artificial intelligence, will continue to play a dominant role to predict, prepare and respond to changing needs of the business,” said Nitin Rakesh, CEO and Executive Director, Mphasis.
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