Advance/Newhouse buys 1010data for $500M

1010data, a provider of cloud-based big data analytics, will become an independent subsidiary

There is a lot of talk about Big Data nowadays, but there is a big problem which is not being addressed enough: while people have a lot of new data to deal with, and new analysis that they need to perform, the data itself isn't reliable or scalable.

1010data, a provider of cloud-based big data analytics for retail, manufacturing, telecom and financial services enterprises, tries to solve that problem, and now it will have a lot more resources to do so as it has been acquired by Advance/Newhouse, an affiliate of Advance Publications, it was announced on Monday. 

Advance is a global media company that operates Bright House Networks, Condé Nast magazines such as the New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Wired, as well as American City Business Journals. It also holds a significant interest in Discovery Communications and Reddit. 

The acquisition price was $500 million, and 1010data will continue to operate independently as a subsidiary, which will include all employees, in all capacities.

Founded in 2000, 1010data provides Big Data Discovery and data sharing, which enables organizations to analyze, share, and monetize Big Data on a single, scalable platform. It also offers an integrated Data Cloud, encompassing public, third-party and unique, disruptive data sets, that enables better decision-making through data enrichment and sharing. And, finally, it provides a complete platform for distributing Big Data applications developed by third-parties.

The typical customer is "anyone who has the need to manage or analyze data. We have so far focused primarily on the capital markets, retail and consumer packaged goods," Sandy Steier, CEO and Co-founder of 1010data, told me.

"We help them be competitive.  We provide a solution that allows them to ask and answer questions about their business and customers in a quicker way, so they can be more competitive and more responsive to their customers."

By becoming a part of Advance, 1010data will now have the resources to scale and grow in a way it would have been able to otherwise, and it will be able to give those resources to its customers. 

"We have been disrupting the big data space for a long time, and we want to keep doing that. We want to reach out beyond the industries in which we have traditionally focused, and engage others sectors, especially in those in industries in which we have some involvement, like health care," said Steier

"For example, we want to partner with more customers who have vertical expertise who can help us get our disruptive methods around. Advance can help us fund these efforts with additional capital."

The company now counts more than 750 banking, retailing, manufacturing, gaming and telecommunication companies as customers. Together, they leverage 1010data to manage and analyze more than 21 trillion rows of data. 

"What will change is that we now have more capital with which to serve them," Steier said.

For Advance, he said "they look for interesting investments in growth sectors, in companies with strong management teams and whose vision they share."

The way he sees it, there are four winners in this deal: 1010data, "in that it can continue to implement its vision and disrupt the world." Its customers, "who will continue to get the support they’ve come to expect." 1010data's employees, "who will continue to do what they’re doing," and the company's shareholders, "who got a good price for their shares."

"We couldn’t have asked for a better deal. It’s a four-way win. There are no losers."

The New York City-based1010data had raised a $35 million round from Norwest Venture Partners in 2010, the only outside capital raised by the company. And now that investment has paid off in a big way. 

Norwest Venture Partners started its growth equity practice in 2009 "with the mission of finding private, rapidly growing, profitable, founder-owned companies in which to invest across multiple sectors," Jon Kossow, general partner at Norwest Venture Partners, told me.

"Based on the simple premise that people always want more information to make better decisions, we made data analytics and information management one of the core focus areas for our team."

Norwest connected with 1010data in 2009 through a cold call and "after a few conversations with Joel and Sandy we quickly found that 1010data’s technology was incomparable to other solutions in the market," he said.

"1010data’s technology platform was lightning fast, highly scalable and had a total cost of ownership far below competing solutions."

In 2010, 1010data "was ahead of the curve," given that big data wasn’t a common term yet.

"Today, there are more hurdles for companies in this sector to overcome, as the market is hyper-competitive. However, there is an underlying need for technology that can manage and manipulate massive amounts of data in real time, and using data to make intelligent business decisions will continue to be a practice for all types of companies moving forward," Kossow said.

"The acquisition of 1010data is a testament to its superior technology and position in the market. Advance is a nontraditional buyer for a company like 1010data, but the acquisition speaks to the interest and importance of a powerful big data technology platform across multiple industries."

He outlined two important parts of this deal. First that, being part of Advance means that 1010data will get "the support it needs to grow the business—from the capital needed to expand into new verticals and geographies to scaling marketing operations."

"Additionally, keeping 1010data’s leadership team at the helm ensures they will maintain the company’s strong focus on customers and employees."