Datameer raises $9.25M for biz data analytics

Spreadsheet-stylized data analytics platform is built with the business user in mind

Datameer, provider of business user-facing analytics solutions built on Apache Hadoop, announced Tuesday that it has secured $9.25 million in Series B financing led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, with participation from existing investor Redpoint Ventures.

The new round follows the company’s $2.5 million Series A raised from Redpoint in April 2010, when the Datameer Analytics Solution (DAS) first launched in beta.

As part of the Series B, Kleiner Perkins partner Ellen Pao has joined Datameer’s board of directors.

Employing a spreadsheet-like interface, DAS is a business intelligence platform designed for the business user juggling big data. No programming knowledge required, just experience with Excel-like spreadsheet software.

Users have access to a library of widgets, including tables, charts, graphs and maps.

The platform promises unlimited scalability and data flexibility via Apache Hadoop, the open-source software framework for data-intensive distributed applications. (Other services backed by Hadoop include A9.com, which builds Amazon’s product search indices, and Twitter, to store and process tweets, log files, and many other types of data generated on the site.)

DAS can be used with any kind of data, but pre-built connectors are included for Excel spreadsheets, unstructured data such as Twitter, XML, relational databases such as Oracle and many more.

"Datameer's ability to open up the power of Hadoop to business users is key to this next wave of business intelligence known as big data analytics and we are excited to help the company achieve its vision,” said Pao in a prepared statement.

Already, Datameer says it has “seen significant customer traction across financial services, retail, telecommunications, government and new media.”

The company will use the new funding to expand its sales, engineering and marketing teams and to  drive further adoption of DAS. The company currently has five open positions: professional services engineer, solutions engineer (pre-sales), technical account manager (customer support), senior manager (marketing) and senior manager/director (alliances).