Trifacta isn't a company that has gained much attention, but it operates in a sector that, to a certain extent at least, is protected from the general downturn in tech investing. We've all seen how an economic slowdown has major impacts on every industry. The thinking goes that, in a recession, organizations close the spigot on spending, and hence opportunities for growth are limited. But while that is the general trend, some areas are less impacted by slowdowns.
In the technology space, while slowing economies mean that greenfield spending on new initiatives decreases, technology solutions that can save money or drive more revenue tend to be somewhat insulated from the greater negativity. Data is a good example of an area that is likely to be safe if global economic woes continue. Taking an organization's existing data and deriving insights that can reduce expenditure or increase revenue is attractive - both in good economic times and bad.
This fact could well have helped Trifacta with its conversations with investors. Either way, the $35 million funding round the company announced today is an indication of some positivity. Trifacta is all about creating software that helps organizations wrangle their data. Specifically, Trifacta offers value to its customers by enabling users to easily transform and enrich raw, complex data into clean and structured formats for analysis. Trifacta creates a kind of continuous improvement cycle whereby both users and machines learn from the other and get smarter with experience.
In terms of the funding round, the $35 million comes from existing investors Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Ignition Partners and new investor Cathay Innovation, the Sino-French fund based in Paris and Shanghai. The new funding brings the company’s total amount raised to more than $76 million.
Trifacta's 2015 performance seems to confirm the company's ability to weather external storms. It increased sales by a reported 700% and added 3,000 companies to its user base. That growth saw the company expand to 105 countries globally and sign up such high-profile names as Citco, TeliaSonera, Royal Bank of Scotland, Proctor & Gamble, Juniper Networks, Sanofi, Kaiser Permanente, Pfizer, and PepsiCo.
From an industry perspective, Trifacta has inked partnerships with important players such as Salesforce, MapR Technologies, and Zoomdata, in addition to expanding efforts with existing partners Cloudera, Hortonworks, and Tableau. Industry analysts seem to concur that there is something good going on here.
"Trifacta is a pioneer of self-service data preparation and data wrangling, and the rapid adoption of Wrangler, combined with expansion into Europe, illustrates there is significant interest in modern approaches to data discovery, governance and preparation as enterprises explore the benefits of more agile analytics environments," said Matt Aslett, analyst at 451 Research.
Data is increasingly critical to efficiency and growth for all types of organizations. We may be heading into a period of economic decline, but companies that help organizations understand their data should be sitting pretty.