Austin’s data.world raises $26M to speed growth

Austin-based startup data.world has raised $26 million in funding to expand its team and grow its product offerings, the company said Tuesday.

The funding round was led by Tech Pioneers Fund. Other investors included Breyer Capital, Prologis Ventures, Alumni Ventures Group, Shasta Ventures, OurCrowd and Workday Venture.

Data.world was founded in 2016 by a team of Austin tech veterans with a goal of building a social network where data scientists to connect and share collections of data. The company’s data catalog allows customers to access, analyze and gain insights from data. It also has an enterprise option geared for large companies.

The company has raised $71.3 million in funding since its founding. The new funding will be used to scale the company as demand grows for its enterprise platform, said Brett Hurt, data.world’s co-founder and CEO.

"All companies have this problem of data being buried in silos," Hurt said. "If you think about data as being the brain of the company -- as being their knowledge around what's happening with their customers, what's happening with their employees, what's happening with their channels and their products -- it literally is such an important asset."

Hurt said the coronavirus pandemic and the increase in working from home has accelerated demand for the company’s offerings.

“During this time of COVID-19, our growth has really accelerated dramatically, because not just data is siloed inside of companies, but people are now siloed as they work from home,” Hurt said.

Hurt said data.world has added about 20 employees to its team in recent months due to the increase in demand, putting the company’s headcount at about 75. The company expects to continue hiring in its sales, marketing, product and customer success divisions, he said.

The new funding will also be used to invest in the enterprise product, which Hurt said will contribute to the larger data.world community and public data sets.

The company this year launched a free COVID-19 portal, which offers an open data catalog for COVID-19 research.

“It’s grown really quickly as the world grapples with the situation that we're in, and with the first global pandemic in my lifetime,” Hurt said.

As part of the funding deal, Scott Booth, chairman of Tech Pioneers Fund, will join data.world’s board of directors.

"Data.world is changing the way enterprises think about and use data,” Booth said in a written statement. “It’s not simply for the data scientists and engineers, but for everyone in an organization. That bears out in how quickly the platform is deployed, adopted, and attached to business-critical use cases. We see this pattern again and again within data.world’s expanding customer base, and it’s one of many reasons we’re so excited to work with the team and accelerate the market opportunity.”