Analytics company Datameer raised $6 million today, according documents filed with the SEC. The company’s PR manager Susan Puccinelli confirmed the funding and said the round came from Redpoint Ventures and Kleiner Perkins.
Datameer makes a spreadsheet-style interface for Apache Hadoop and makes the big data analytics platform easier for non-developers to use. It was founded in 2009 and raised $2.5 million from Redpoint in 2010. Last year Datameer raised a $9.25 million round led by Kleiner Perkins with Redpoint participating.
Apache Hadoop is an open source data processing system used for building clusters of cheap servers that can compete with powerful supercomputers. Hadoop works by breaking down large, complex computational problems into smaller problems, distributing those smaller problems across the cluster and then compiling the responses into an answer to the original problem.
That may sound simple enough, but Hadoop can be very difficult to use, especially for business users who typically work in Excel or business intelligence dashboards and don’t necessarily need to perform computationally complex problems. To help those users out, Datameer has developed an interface for Hadoop that uses a familiar spreadsheet model. It also sells a desktop edition that will enable users to run Hadoop on a single desktop machine, with no need to run a big cluster anywhere. The standalone desktop version obviously isn’t comparable to a big cluster of servers, but it can be used as an analytics tool in its own right. For more details on the company’s offerings check out Curt Monash’s analysis.
Not too long ago the company inked deals with both Dell and Fujitsu to include Datameer in each company’s respective Hadoop offerings.
Puccinelli says the funding will be used to expand the team to keep up with demand for Datameer’s product.