Brad Lovering Leaves Splunk for Seattle-Area Startup SignalSense

Brad Lovering, the former Microsoft Technical Fellow who opened Splunk’s Seattle office and most recently served as its chief development architect, is at a new startup, SignalSense, which just raised $1.3 million, according to a securities filing and Lovering’s LinkedIn profile.

Lovering was so sought after by Splunk, the high-flying San Francisco company focused on so-called machine data, that the opportunity to hire him accelerated its plans to open an engineering office in Seattle, as we reported in 2011.

Now, it appears Lovering, along with former Moprise co-founder and CTO Russell Williams and others, are taking a swing at “automating human expertise from enterprise big data using deep learning,” according to the SignalSense website, which says little more than that.

There’s a bit more detail on LinkedIn. The company, based in Bellevue, WA, is setting out to solve “enterprise data security, fraud and content protection problems using deep learning technology, a breakthrough in machine learning that enables industry-leading predictive analytics and risk analysis for IT data assets, enhancing the productivity of security experts.” That’s according to Lovering’s LinkedIn page, where he is listed as co-founder and VP of engineering of SignalSense since February. He lists the end of his employment at Splunk as January.

Prior to Splunk, Lovering spent more than two decades at Microsoft, where he was a Technical Fellow, a rare designation in the company reserved for its elite engineers.

Meanwhile, SignalSense has raised $1.3 million from eight investors in a convertible debt offering, according to an SEC filing.

We couldn’t reach anyone from SignalSense. We’ll update this story if we hear back from them.

A LinkedIn search reveals eight employees at SignalSense, including Lovering and Williams, who is listed as founder and CEO. And, of course, the company is hiring.

The SEC filing lists Lovering, Williams, and Yuval Neeman as directors. Neeman is managing director at Trilogy Equity Partners and a private investor, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Author: Benjamin Romano

Benjamin is the former Editor of Xconomy Seattle. He has covered the intersections of business, technology and the environment in the Pacific Northwest and beyond for more than a decade. At The Seattle Times he was the lead beat reporter covering Microsoft during Bill Gates’ transition from business to philanthropy. He also covered Seattle venture capital and biotech. Most recently, Benjamin followed the technology, finance and policies driving renewable energy development in the Western US for Recharge, a global trade publication. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.