Accel Partners Expands Investments In Big Data

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Accel Partners, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm focusing on early stage and growth equity investments today announced that it is allocating $100 million for its new Big Data Fund 2 and has added Anthony Deighton, CTO of QlikTech Inc. and Shlomo Kramer, CEO of Imperva to the Big Data Fund Advisory Council.

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Building upon the firm's Big Data portfolio, the additional capital will support entrepreneurs that are using the technology platforms that were built in the first wave of big data startups, to create Data Driven Software (DDS) designed to help the workforce at large make smarter decisions through deeper insights. 

"We are seeing an accelerated rate of innovation in big data, with the newest generation of entrepreneurs re-imagining ways to extract the most value out of big data and fundamentally change the way we work and process information," said Ping Li, Partner, Accel Partners. "In addition to the capital support from Big Data Fund 2, we continue to deepen the expertise within our network with thought leaders from related fields in data driven enterprise software applications, and are excited to share that Anthony Deighton and Shlomo Kramer will be joining our Big Data Advisory Council." 

"The enterprise world has already embraced the concept of big data and is starting to leverage insights derived from data to solve security and other business problems in ways previously unthinkable," said Shlomo Kramer, CEO Imperva. "As big data evolves it will be exciting to be at the forefront of innovation with the Accel team, working alongside entrepreneurs who are creating new software applications that put the power of big data into the hands of the work force."

DDS will automatically harness data from a variety of sources, analyze it and present valuable real-time insights to the business end user (e.g. HR recruiters, sales representatives, IT managers, business analyst, to name a few). No longer will the dearth of data scientists be an inhibitor to the adoption of big data technologies –DDS will take care of the data science and empower users to ask the bigger questions. 

"The last mile of big data will be built by a new class of software applications that enable everyday users to get real value out of all the data being created," said Jay Parikh, vice president of infrastructure engineering at Facebook and Big Data Advisory Council member. "Today's entrepreneurs are now able to innovate on top of a technology stack that has grown increasingly powerful in the last few years – enabling product and analytical experiences that are more personalized and more valuable than ever."

RelateIQ, which rolled out of stealth last week, is an example of how DDS is able to significantly improve efficiencies in the workplace. The product is a central place for work groups to collaborate and keep track of relationships in real time without having to enter updates manually. It is able to pull in massive amounts of data from email, calendars, mobile devices and other sources, to create a transparent CRM experience. The software also automatically analyzes and recommends actions to take ("follow up on proposal to company A", "reply to email from client Y" etc.), becoming, as the Wall Street Journal coined it "Your New Secretary".

Accel Partner's Big Data team has published "The Last Mile in Big Data: How Data-Driven Software Will Empower the Intelligent Enterprise ", a whitepaper that explores the evolution of software and detailed analysis on why DDS will be a driving force for the next wave of innovation in software. Visit www.accel.com/bigdata to download the whitepaper.

Accel Partners has funded a number of companies building innovative data infrastructure platforms and DDS. Examples include: Cloudera, Couchbase, Lookout, Nimble Storage, Opower, Prismatic, QlikView, RelateIQ, Sumo Logic, and Trifacta.

About Accel Partners
Founded in 1983, and managing over $9.6 billion in capital, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses.  Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London, and Bangalore, as well as in China via its partnership with IDG-Accel.

Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful technology companies, many of which have defined their categories, including 99designs, Actuate, AdMob, Agile Software, Alfresco, Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, BBN, Bonobos, Braintree, Brightcove, Cloudera, ComScore, Diapers.com (Quidsi), Dropbox, Etsy, Exclusively.in, Facebook, Flipkart, Fusion-IO, Gameforge, GlamMedia, Groupon, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, IronPlanet, JBoss, Kayak, Lookout, Macromedia, metroPCS, MoPub, Myntra, Polycom/PictureTel, Playfish, Portal Software, QlikTech, Rapt, Real Networks, Redback, Responsys, Riverbed, Spotify, Squarespace, SunRun, Trulia, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, Webroot, Wonga, XenSource and Zimbra.

SOURCE Accel Partners