SnapLogic, a company that helps connect data from legacy applications to the cloud or to a centralized internal data lake, announced a $37.5 million round today.
Investors include Microsoft and Silver Lake Waterman, the growth capital arm of Silver Lake along with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners and Triangle Peak Partners. Today’s investment brings the total to $96.3 million.
SnapLogic essentially acts as a translator for data (or streams of data) moving to the cloud or into a data lake inside an enterprise, SnapLogic CEO Gaurav Dhillon explained. “We have over 400 snaps — connectors or adaptors to various systems like Workday, Concur, SAP, Twitter, Tableau and machine protocols,” he explained.
SnapLogic snap examples. Photo Credit: SnapLogic
“This enables enterprises to do a better job of connecting consumer apps to legacy apps and deal with streams of information wherever they are,” Dhillon said.
As more customers look to move to the cloud, they are finding it’s hard to link data from legacy systems to the newer cloud services like Workday or ServiceNow. SnapLogic wants to help customers get data in and out of cloud services without having to ask IT for help.
He points to an HR on-boarding process as an example. This type of operation could touch four or five internal systems. How do you get these systems to speak to one another and hide the complexity of those interactions from the user? That’s the goal of SnapLogic tools.
The other goal is helping bring streams of data into what’s known as a data lake, a centralized place where companies can bring together various data sources. Over time SnapLogic realized that the same technology they use to connect to the cloud would also work in this scenario.
While the two use cases are clearly related they have different characteristics, having do with what Dhillon calls ‘the mass of data and the velocity of data’. “With cloud connections, there is not as much data, but it moves very fast. There is lots of data moving into a data lake, but it’s not moving as quickly.” It’s a continuum, but the company is essentially solving the same problem, Dhillon explained.
It’s worth noting that Microsoft is not just an investor, it’s also a partner. SnapLogic recently announced support of the Microsoft Cortana Analytics Suite. Other new partners include Okta and Workday. The company reports that it is processing more than 55 billion documents per month through its platform.
Customers include Adobe, Box, AstraZeneca, CapitalOne and Verizon (the owner of TechCrunch).