Big data has captured the attention and checkbooks of investors. In the last year, Seattle-area companies building big data platforms, tools, and applications have raised north of $100 million from venture capitalists.
Add Tableau Software’s IPO, and the area’s companies in this space have landed investment of close to $300 million in the last 12 months, according to Xconomy research and data from PitchBook.
We’re thrilled to have the CEOs of the big data companies that raised the two biggest rounds in that period—Peter Godman of Qumulo and Kevin Merritt of Socrata—join an already great lineup of business and technology leaders for our Nov. 19 Xconomy Forum: Big Insight— Making Sense of Big Data in Seattle.
(Pro tip: tickets for this half-day interactive forum at 415 Westlake cost about half as much today as they will after our early bird rate ends Thursday. Register here.)
Qumulo and Socrata are two companies working with data in very different ways, highlighting the breadth of opportunity in big data and, yes, perhaps the overuse of the term. The growing cluster of companies and research efforts in the Northwest captures that breadth, from the largest-scale data platform providers and consumer services practitioners in Microsoft and Amazon, to data-centric businesses like Zillow and INRIX, to leaders in data-enabled scientific research at the University of Washington’s eScience Institute and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories.
Qumulo, formed in 2012 by Godman and other former leaders at data storage pioneer Isilon, is working on enterprise data storage technology that is “simple, scalable, and efficient.” The company has been pretty quiet since raising $24.5 million last November from Highland Capital Partners, Madrona Venture Group and Valhalla Partners. It will be great to hear an update from Godman on where this promising startup is heading. He joins our panel on big data platforms and tools.
Socrata, meanwhile, raised $18 million this summer from OpenView Venture Partners, Frazier Technology Ventures, and Morgenthaler Ventures to expand its cloud-based platform for managing and accessing government data. Founder and CEO Merritt has positioned the company, founded in 2007, as an enabler and beneficiary of the “open data” movement in government. Merritt has been thinking about handling large amounts of data for a long time. In 2002, he founded MessageRite, a web-based email archiving service. He will be on our data-centric applications panel.
Another new addition to our lineup for the Big Insight event is Bill Pike, who leads Pacific Northwest National Laboratories visual analytics group, which is tasked with helping researchers handle data related to national science and security challenges. Pike joins our panel on data-driven science.
Here are the rest of our confirmed speakers:
Roger Barga, Principal Group Program Manager, Microsoft Research
Andrew Beers, Vice President of Engineering, Tableau Software
Oren Etzioni, Executive Director, Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence
Carlos Guestrin, CEO, GraphLab; Amazon Professor of Machine Learning, University of Washington
Joseph Hellerstein, Manager of Computational Discovery, Google
Stan Humphries, Chief Economist, Zillow
Jeremy Jaech, CEO, SNUPI Technologies
Ed Lazowska, Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering; Founding Director, eScience Institute, University of Washington
Matt McIlwain, Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group
John Slitz, CEO, SpaceCurve
Leo Spiegel, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development, Pivotal
You can find more details about our Big Insight event here, and you can get your ticket here. We hope to see you there!
