ThoughtSpot, which is kind of Google for data analysis within a business, has raised $50 million in Series C round of funding, because its technology is pretty damn cool.
Business intelligence is tricky, time-consuming, and historically has required some genius analyst crunching numbers while lay-people for whom datasets and spreadsheets are the devil incarnate wait around for a message from the data mountaintop.
Well, ThoughtSpot gets rid of the need for that. Using an interface that’s pretty much analogous to Google’s famous search box, the company’s software can serve up sales data, information on specific product categories, and almost anything else that someone would want to know about information.
It sounds easy, and it looks easy, but running search queries across different kinds of structured data sets is no picnic.
“The businesses of the future will not wait days or weeks for reports to be built. And the analytics teams of the future will no longer be report factories,”said Ajeet Singh, co-founder and CEO of ThoughtSpot. “We create a win-win scenario for both groups — business people get data instantly to make decisions, while analytics teams can focus on more advanced analyses.”
The problem that businesses face is actually best encapsulated in this canned quote from General Catalyst managing director, Hemant Taneja. “As individuals, finding answers to our questions is as easy as an internet search. But despite spending $70 billion a year on analytics software and services against the same problem, the process for companies remains arduous,” said Taneja, in a statement. “We’ve seen how ThoughtSpot is closing that ease-of-use gap for customers and believe it’s fast, intuitive, search-driven analytics is poised to become the new standard for data access.”
I would include some information here about ThoughtSpot’s numbers (which sound impressive), but because the company actually didn’t say anything more than the percentage its revenues increased, I’m ignoring it.
The company said it would use the round to continue its expansion around the world, to boosst its sales and marketing program, and in continued research and development.
The company counts Bed Bath & Beyond, Automated Financial Systems, Collegis Education, Nutanix and Hightail among its customers.