Socrata Opening More Government Data with $30M from Sapphire Ventures, Others

Socrata, the Seattle company making a cloud-based software platform for accessing government data, has raised an additional $30 million in a Series C round led by new investor Sapphire Ventures.

Earlier investors OpenView Venture Partners, Morganthaler Ventures, and Frazier Technology Ventures also participated. Socrata, founded in 2007, has now raised $55 million.

Jai Das, managing director of Sapphire Ventures (formerly known as SAP Ventures), joins Socrata’s board with the investment.

The funding round, first disclosed in an SEC filing last week, will fuel the company’s continued international expansion, and its cloud-focused technology development.

CEO Kevin Merritt says Seattle’s the right place to build that technology.

Merritt
Merritt

“Our business mission is hugely informed by the fact that virtually every significant technology company—including Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon—has based its cloud computing center of excellence in Seattle,” Merritt says in a news release. “One of the reasons that we’re able to offer the public sector state-of-the-art cloud-based open data technology that leads to data-driven decision-making is because we’re based in Seattle.”

Socrata said it added 36 new customers in the third quarter, and has more than 200 total. The company said it increased revenue 92 percent compared to the same period last year, though it did not provide baseline numbers.

For more on Socrata, see this opinion piece by board member Robert Runge on how the open data movement can transform government.

Also, here’s previous Xconomy coverage of Socrata:
Socrata on a Tear With Open Data Network and European Project
Socrata raises $18 million Series B round
Socrata Powers—and Benefits From—Open Data Movement in Government

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.