US-based machine learning services provider H2O.ai secured $20m in series B capital yesterday in a round featuring insurance company Transamerica and financial services provider Capital One’s investment arm Capital One Growth Ventures.
Paxion Capital Partners led the round while Nexus Venture Partners also contributed funds.
Originally named 0xdata, the company rebranded to H2O in November 2014. The company’s big data machine learning technology is able to analyse up to four billion database entries per second.
The funding will go towards recruitment and will be used to build an ecosystem of developers on the company’s platform. Michael Marks, founding partner of Paxion and Walden Riverwood Capital will join H2O’s board of directors.
H2O has obtained $34m so far, though it has only disclosed details about $30.6m. In November 2014, Transamerica’s corporate venturing unit Transamerica Ventures supported an $8.9m series A round.
The series A round was co-led by Rakesh Matur, chief executive of India-based online retailer Junglee, Michael Marks, founding partner at Riverwood Capital, and Ash Bhardwaj, former chief executive of contract manufacturer Flextronics.
Nexus also invested in the series A, having previously led H2O’s $1.7m seed round in 2012.
Lauren Connolley, venture partner at Capital One Growth Ventures, said: “We first came to H2O.ai as customers. We were quickly impressed with H2O’s power to operationalise data science and the critical role H2O plays as a bridge between data science and application development.
“We are excited to partner with H2O.ai, working with them as they scale their efforts in financial services and help us as we develop unique solutions to better serve our customers.”