“Above the Trend Line” – Your Industry Rumor Central for 9/29/2023

Above the Trend Line: your industry rumor central is a recurring feature of insideBIGDATA. In this column, we present a variety of time-critical news items grouped by category, including 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. Our goal is to provide you with a one-stop source of late-breaking news to help you stay up to date with this fast-paced ecosystem. We are constantly working with our extensive vendor network to bring you the latest happenings. If you have any news to share, please email me at: daniel@insidebigdata.com. Let’s start with some new funding news…
SQream, the data & analytics accelerator company focused on big data and AI/ML workloads, has successfully completed a $45 million Series C financing round. The round was led by World Trade Ventures, with participation from new and existing investors, including Schusterman Investments, George Kaiser Foundation (Atento), Icon Continuity Fund, Blumberg Capital, and Freddy & Helen Holdings. The funds raised will be used to expand the company’s presence in North America, strengthen strategic partnerships, and advance AI/ML enterprise capabilities and big data analytics.
UserEvidence, the customer voice platform for B2B go-to-market (GTM) teams, has raised $9 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Crosslink Capital, with participation from Founder Collective, Afore, and Next Frontier Capital. This brings the total funding for UserEvidence to $14 million.
MotherDuck, the builder of a serverless data analytics platform based on open-source database DuckDB, has raised $52.5 million in funding. The round was led by Felicis and puts MotherDuck at a post-money valuation of $400 million. Investors like a16z, Madrona, Amplify Partners, Altimeter, Redpoint, Zero Prime, and more also participated in the round. Felicis General Partner Viviana Faga will join MotherDuck’s Board of Directors.
Pliable, an AI-powered SaaS platform that simplifies data organization and utilization without the need for an engineer, has launched with a $2.5 million seed round led by Resolute Ventures. The funding will help Pliable expand its team and platform to streamline data processes for users.
Tabular, the provider of an independent data platform based on Apache Iceberg, has closed a $26 million funding round, bringing total investment in the company to $37 million. The round was led by Altimeter Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Zetta Venture Partners. The funding will be used to expand Tabular’s market reach beyond AWS to Google Cloud, Azure, and MinIO object storage.
Writer, a leading generative AI platform for enterprises, has raised $100 million in its Series B funding round. The round is being led by ICONIQ Growth, with participation from WndrCo, Balderton Capital, Insight Partners, and Aspect Ventures. Writer customers such as Accenture and Vanguard also participated in the round.
Pixis, a codeless AI infrastructure company focused on enhancing performance marketing, has raised $85 million in its Series C1 funding round. The round was led by Touring Capital and included investors like Grupo Carso, General Atlantic, Celesta Capital, and Chiratae Ventures. The funding will be used to enhance Pixis’ AI capabilities, expand globally, invest in R&D for a generative AI-powered creative studio, and build strategic partnerships.
Denodo, a leader in data management, has signed a definitive agreement with TPG Growth for a $336 million investment in its Series B preferred equity. The transaction, expected to close in early October, includes primary capital and a secondary sale of shares by HGGC. TPG Growth’s investment will enable Denodo to further expand its enterprise data management capabilities.
d-Matrix, a leader in generative AI compute for data centers, has closed a $110 million Series B funding round led by Temasek. The funds will be used to commercialize Corsair, the world’s first Digital-In Memory Compute (DIMC) chiplet-based inference compute platform.
Canvs AI, the insights platform for consumer and employee feedback, has raised $15 million in funding led by Fulcrum Equity Partners. Engage, the corporate venture initiative from companies like Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, and The Home Depot, also participated in the round.
In M&A activity, Acceldata, a leader in enterprise data observability, has acquired Bewgle, an artificial intelligence platform, to expand its data observability capabilities into AI and large language models (LLMs). LimeWire, known for peer-to-peer music sharing, has acquired AI generation platform BlueWillow. Rocket Software has acquired B.O.S., a German-based software company that provides data integration solutions.
Domino Data Lab, an Enterprise AI platform provider, has partnered with Carahsoft Technology Corp. to make its platform available to the Public Sector. Qumulo, the data management company, has expanded its relationship with Fujitsu to offer more deployment options for their joint solution. VAST Data, the AI data platform company, has partnered with CoreWeave to deliver highly scalable and performant cloud infrastructure for AI and accelerated compute workloads.
These are just a few of the latest news and developments in the big data, data science, and machine learning industries. Stay tuned for more updates.



Source link