The Coolest Business Analytics Companies Of The 2020 Big Data 100
Part 1 of CRN’s Big Data 100 looks at the vendors solution providers need to know in the big data business analytics space.
They’re All Business
In the big data world, business analysis and data visualization software are where the rubber meets the road. Data analysis and visualization tools are how business analysts and information workers access and derive value from the increasingly huge volumes of data assets that businesses and organizations are generating today.
The global business intelligence market reached $20.5 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach $40.5 billion by 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 12 percent, according to market research firm Mordor Intelligence.
As part of the 2020 Big Data 100, we’ve put together a list of business analytics software companies – from well-established vendors to those in startup mode – that solution providers should be aware of. They offer everything from self-service reporting and data visualization tools to sophisticated business analysis platforms that help business analysts and data scientists tackle the most complex analytical tasks.
This week, CRN is running the Big Data 100 list in slide shows with vendors of business analytics software, database systems, data management and integration software, data science and machine learning tools, and big data systems and platforms.
(Some vendors offer big data products that span multiple technology categories: They appear in the slideshow for the technology segment in which they are most prominent.)
Alteryx
Top Executive: CEO Dean Stoecker
Alteryx develops a self-service, end-to-end data analytics platform that data scientists and business analysts use for data discovery, preparation, blending and analysis. The software is used for a range of in-database analytics, predictive analytics, data mining and prescriptive analytics tasks.
Alteryx, based in Irvine, Calif., has been building up its executive ranks in recent months, hiring former Hortonworks executive Scott Davidson in December 2019 for the newly created post of chief operating officer and former Capital One and PayPal executive Amy Heidersbach in August 2019 as chief marketing officer.
Anodot
Top Executive: CEO David Drai
Anodot provides analytics software that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to autonomously track and monitor business data to discover changes and anomalies that can impact business performance.
Just this month Anodot, with its U.S. headquarters in Redwood City, Calif., raised $35 million in a series C round of financing led by Intel Capital, bringing the company’s total financing to $62 million.
AtScale
Top Executive: CEO Christopher Lynch
The company’s AtScale Adaptive Analytics software provides “intelligent data virtualization,” sitting between data management systems and front-end business intelligence tools to provide a secure, governed workspace for advanced data analysis tasks. The platform includes Cloud OLAP (online analytical processing), Autonomous Data Engineering and Universal Semantic Layer components.
In January the company debuted the AtScale Adaptive Analytics 2020.1 with a new multi-source intelligent data model, self-optimizing query acceleration structures and a virtual cube catalog.
Databricks
Top Executive: CEO Ali Ghodsi
Databricks, founded by the developers of the Apache Spark cluster computing framework, markets a cloud-based unified analytics engine for big data processing, data science, analytics and machine learning tasks.
In February, San Francisco-based Databricks announced easier ways for customers to populate “lakehouses” – which combine elements of data lake and data warehouse systems – with data using the vendor’s Databricks Ingest software and tools from the vendor’s new Data Ingestion Network of partners.
Datameer
Top Executive: CEO Christian Rodatus
In the last year, Datameer has been expanding beyond its roots in providing data preparation tools for Hadoop systems. The company’s technology portfolio now includes the core Datameer business intelligence platform, the Neebo cloud-native virtual analytics hub, and the Datameer X data preparation and exploration software for data scientists and machine learning engineers.
Datameer, based in San Francisco, raised $40 million in a new funding round in October 2019.
Domo
Top Executive: CEO Josh James
Domo has been one of the most visible of the new generation of big data software developers in recent years. The company provides a business intelligence and data visualization system that integrates data from multiple operational sources throughout an organization and provides executives and other decision makers with a unified view of that data.
For its fiscal 2020 (ended Jan. 31) Domo, based in American Fork, Utah, reported revenue of $173.4 million, up nearly 18 percent from $142.5 million in fiscal 2019.
GoodData
Top Executive: CEO Roman Stanek
GoodData’s platform makes possible the creation, delivery and automated management of data analytics on a massive scale and enables OEM companies to embed analytical functionality within their products. The San Francisco-based company recently debuted new pricing options that charge by the workspace, meaning entire teams or even companies, instead of per user or seat.
Incorta
Top Executive: Osama Elkady
Incorta offers a unified data analytics platform that uses direct data mapping as an alternative to complex, time-consuming data ETL (extract, transform and load) technologies and processes used to build traditional data warehouses. The company’s Direct Data Mapping engine instead provides direct, near-real-time access to data within operational systems for analysis.
In February the company debuted Incorta 4.6, a release focused on making cloud data lake storage systems “analytics ready.”
Founded by former Oracle executives, the San Mateo, Calif.-based company raised $30 million in Series C financing in August 2019.
Infor Birst
Top Executive: CEO Kevin Samuelson
Birst provides a networked, cloud-native business intelligence and analytics platform that emphasizes ease-of-use data visualization and analysis capabilities. The company was acquired by enterprise application vendor Infor in 2017.
In February, Infor partnered with cloud data warehouse service provider Snowflake to integrate Birst with the Snowflake platform, allowing businesses to build automated data warehouses with the Birst system.
Information Builders
Top Executive: CEO Frank Vella
Information Builders is a long-established player in the business intelligence software arena with its flagship WebFocus business analytics software, along with other products in the company’s portfolio including the Omni-Gen data management platform (data integration, data quality and master data management) and “business outcomes” software for data monetization, customer experience and other analytical tasks.
In February privately held Information Builders said that annual recurring revenue from its cloud-based products quadrupled in 2019.
Kinetica
Top Executive: CEO Paul Appleby
Kinetica has developed high-performance analytics software, the Kinetica Active Analytics Platform, that combines streaming and historical data with location intelligence and machine learning-based analytics to tackle complex problems. At the system’s core is the startup’s distributed, in-memory GPU database that can analyze massive datasets with millisecond response times.
In February, the San Francisco-based company launched Kinetica Cloud, a cloud-based version of the Kinetica platform, running on Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud. Kinetica Cloud will be available on Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud later this year.
Kyvos Insights
Top Executive: CEO Praveen Kankariya
Kyvos markets a business intelligence platform that analyzes data on a massive scale both on-premise and in the cloud. At the core of the system is the company’s next-generation Elastic OLAP (online analytical processing) technology that lets users visualize, explore and analyze trillions of rows of data with sub-second response times.
Kyvos is based in Los Gatos, Calif. Its analytics software is most frequently used for customer behavior, financial, supply chain and web site viewer analytics.
Logi Analytics
Top Executive: CEO Steven Schneider
Logi Analytics provides a popular embedded analytics development platform that businesses and software vendors use to build analytical capabilities, including dashboards, reports and self-service analytics within their applications.
Logi Analytics, based in McLean, Va., extended the analytical capabilities of its product lineup in 2019 with the acquisition of analytics platform vendor Zoomdata in June and Jinfonet Software, developer of the JReport operational reporting software, in February.
MicroStrategy
Top Executive: CEO Michael Saylor
MicroStrategy (founded in 1989 and based in Tysons Corner, Va.) is one of the pioneers of the business analytics industry, providing its analytics platform, mobility software and portfolio of related products for enterprise-scale analytical tasks.
In February the company launched MicroStrategy 2020, a major new release of the company’s flagship enterprise analytics platform, and performance enhancements for HyperIntelligence, software that injects analytics and intelligence into information workers’ everyday work processes.
OmniSci
Top Executive: CEO Todd Mostak
OmniSci develops accelerated analytics software that leverages the parallel processing capabilities of modern GPU and CPU hardware to query and visualize billions of big data records, uniting analytics, data science and location intelligence workflows. The company’s product line, based on research out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, includes the OmniSciDB SQL engine, OmniSci Render visual rendering engine, and OmniSci Immerse for interactive visual analytics.
Earlier this month, San Francisco-based OmniSci struck a deal with HP Inc. under which OmniSci’s business analytics tools will come preloaded on HP’s Z8 line of workstations.
Outlier
Top Executive: CEO Sean Byrnes
Declaring itself to be the enemy of traditional business intelligence dashboards, Outlier provides software that detects unexpected changes and patterns in data. The company’s automated business analysis platform collects and monitors data in real time and notifies users of unexpected or dramatic changes that could indicate a sudden shift in online consumer behavior, for example, or detect fraudulent financial service activity.
Outlier, based in Oakland, Calif., raised $22.1 million in Series B funding in January.
Plotly Technologies
Top Executive: CEO Jack Parmer
Plotly, which originally focused on providing Python and R libraries of interactive charting tools, is now focused on its Dash Enterprise data science and AI platform for creating interactive analytic applications.
In February, the Montreal-based company debuted Dash Enterprise 3.4, which allows easier deployment in Kubernetes environments and across clusters. The release includes a full starter app set to streamline the creation of analytic applications.
Promethium
Top Executive: CEO Kaycee Lai
Promethium is addressing the challenges of self-service data discovery and analytics with its Data Navigation System, the startup’s augmented data management software that allows information workers to access an organization’s entire “data estate” for answers to questions developed in plainspoken language, eliminating the dependence on manual SQL scripting to develop queries.
Based in Menlo Park, Calif., Promethium raised $6 million in venture funding in January.
Qlik
Top Executive: CEO Mike Capone
One of the leading business intelligence software vendors, Qlik offers a comprehensive portfolio of data analysis and data integration software including the QlikView data discovery software and the flagship Qlik Sense data analytics platform.
In January, Qlik, based in King of Prussia, Pa., acquired RoxAI to extend Qlik Sense’s AI functionality with advanced business data and alerting capabilities. That follows Qlik’s 2019 acquisition of Attunity and its data integration products that now make up Qlik’s data integration portfolio.
Salesforce/Tableau
Top Executive: CEO Marc Benioff
Cloud application giant Salesforce has been a significant player in the business intelligence software arena for a number of years, first with the company’s Einstein Analytics software (originally known as Wave Analytics) and now in the wake of its $15.7 billion acquisition of business analytics leader Tableau Software.
Salesforce, based in San Francisco, says the combination of Tableau with the Salesforce CRM and marketing applications make the company a major force as businesses and organizations undertake digital transformation initiatives. For the moment Salesforce is targeting Einstein as the analytics solution that works most natively with the company’s CRM applications while promoting Tableau for analytics that go beyond the Salesforce CRM environment. Salesforce has continued to operate Tableau as an independent company with Adam Selipsky running the show as Tableau CEO.
SAS
Top Executive: CEO Jim Goodnight
SAS is one of the business intelligence software industry’s heavy hitters with a broad range of business analytics tools, data management software and analytics-based applications (such as customer intelligence, fraud analytics and IoT data analysis). Leading the broad SAS product portfolio is the company’s SAS Platform that provides the underlying analytical capabilities for many of its products and the SAS Viya data analysis and visualization software.
SAS, based in Cary, N.C., is widely seen as a leader in artificial intelligence technology including machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing.
Sisense
Top Executive: CEO Amir Orad
Sisense provides a data and analytics platform used by data engineers, developers and analysts to build analytical applications including user-interactive dashboards, self-service applications or white-labeled BI applications.
In May 2019 Sisense acquired Periscope Data, a fast-rising developer of a Software-as-a-Service data analytics system that combines the capabilities of SQL, Python and R, and was generally seen as particularly focused on the data science side of business analytics. In January Periscope Data became Sisense for Cloud Data Teams.
Also in January, Sisense, based in New York City, raised a whopping $100 million in additional funding, putting its valuation at more than $1 billion.
Tellius
Top Executive: CEO Ajay Khanna
Tellius offers a search-driven analytics platform, the Tellius Genius AI Engine, that the company says makes it easy for users to ask questions of, and get deep insights from, their business data. The system’s voice, search and natural language capabilities augment self-service BI and analytics initiatives.
Tellius is based in Reston, Va.
ThoughtSpot
Top Executive: CEO Sudheesh Nair
ThoughtSpot’s search- and AI-driven analytics platform, including its SearchIQ natural language search capability, helps users and analysts get granular insights from billions of rows of data. Core to the company’s system are the Falcon in-memory calculation engine and the SpotIQ AI engine.
ThoughtSpot, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., raised a stunning $248 million in a round of funding in August 2019 that boosted its market valuation to $1.95 billion.
Tibco
Top Executive: Dan Streetman
Tibco, based in Palo Alto, Calif., offers a lineup of information management, data fabric, business analytics, data science and data streaming software.
The company has assembled its big data product portfolio through a number of big data-related acquisitions over the years including Spotfire and its business analytics and visualization software, data science software developer Statistica, data science collaboration software provider Alpine Data Labs, and SnappyData with its in-memory database.