WibiData, a pioneer developing and servicing Big Data Applications, announced today it has raised $15 million in a Series B funding round led by Canaan Partners with participation from existing investors like NEA and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. This investment demonstrates a shift in the Big Data ecosystem toward applications that deliver direct value to businesses. In connection with this investment, Canaan Partners’ Ross Fubini has joined the WibiData board. NEA Partner Jon Sakoda will continue to serve on the board.
With WibiData, organizations across industries can deliver personalized user experiences that evolve based on the data collected. Deploying WibiData’s Big Data Applications enables companies to create better, real-time application experiences without the vast engineering resources required at companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix.
“Big Data Applications are transformative, mission critical solutions that companies across industries must deploy in order to stay competitive,” said Christophe Bisciglia, Founder and CEO of WibiData. “Customers and investors agree that WibiData’s talented team can deliver on the promise of Big Data Applications. This capital will allow us to keep hiring exceptional talent, build disruptive technology and help organizations enhance the user experience.”
Canaan Partners’ Ross Fubini is poised to bring leadership and product expertise to WibiData with his experience as a successful entrepreneur and investor. “Christophe and the team have been at the vanguard of the Hadoop movement, providing unparalleled insight into the resources involved deploying Hadoop across Fortune 500 companies,” Fubini said. “WibiData’s Big Data Applications will be essential in delivering on the promise that Big Data offers enterprises.”
WibiData applications are based on the open source Kiji Project, which drastically reduces Big Data Application development and deployment cycles. Because business needs vary in the types of data integration, analysis and predictive modeling required, WibiData is building suites of application solutions for vertical industries. For example, a retail Big Data Application suite allows organizations to personalize content, improve search relevance, deliver targeted recommendations and integrate anomaly detection across web properties, mobile devices and in store.
Early adopters of Big Data Applications like Opower, a SaaS company and WibiData customer, are already realizing the benefits of acting on data in real time.
“WibiData’s technology allows us to create a rich user experience and personalized platform that better serves energy consumers,” said Drew Hylbert, VP Technology and Infrastructure at Opower. “WibiData has saved us considerable time and effort building and deploying applications that empower people to make smarter decisions about their energy use.”