US-based big data services provider Platfora raised $30m in a series D round on Tuesday featuring networking equipment maker Cisco and Citi Ventures, financial services firm Citi’s corporate venturing subsidiary.
The round included financial services provider HSBC and venture capital firms Harmony Partners, Allegis Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Tenaya Capital, the latter spun out of Lehman Brothers following its bankruptcy.
Platfora’s technology combines a range of tools such as big data analytics, business intelligence and data visualisation to make data more easily accessible and understandable, reducing the time and cost for a team to complete a project.
Tenaya previously led Platfora’s $38m series C round in March 2014, investing alongside Cisco, Citi Ventures, Allegis, Andreessen Horowitz, Battery, Sutter Hill and In-Q-Tel, an investment vehicle for the US intelligence community.
Platfora secured $20m in a 2012 series B round led by Battery Ventures that included Andreessen Horowitz, Sutter Hill and In-Q-Tel. Andreessen Horowitz led the $5.7m first tranche of a 2011 series A round also featuring In-Q-Tel that closed at $7.2m later in the year, according to a regulatory filing.
Remi Bourrette, head of strategic innovation investments at HSBC, said: “Organisations of all types are facing big challenges to harness the power of big data analytics and need to empower business users with the right tools to address them.
“We identified Platfora as a partner in this field, given it is an important player in an evolution that could affect many industries the way business intelligence did in the early 2000s.”