GraphLab Announces $6.75 million in Funding from Madrona Venture Group and NEA to Fuel the Fastest Graph Analysis for Modern Datasets

SEATTLE, May 14, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- GraphLab Inc.(graphlab.com) today announced a $6.75 million Series A funding led by Madrona Venture Group and NEA. GraphLab Inc. is innovating on the popular open source distributed graph computation framework (graphlab.org) that is used millions of times per day to deliver recommendations through popular consumer services.

Founded by leading data scientist and entrepreneur, Carlos Guestrin, who began the GraphLab open-source project five years ago, GraphLab Inc. is building a commercial product for applying advanced machine learning to massive graph datasets.  The company is based in Seattle and will continue to actively support the open source GraphLab project.  

"Data has the ability to make our lives better – whether applied to public health, economics, or suggesting the perfect song.  But, as the complexity of data sets grows, the need for entirely new ways of thinking about them has grown as well," said Carlos Guestrin, CEO.  "The industry's response to the GraphLab project has been clear, this is the solution that drives millions of transactions daily and we are excited to build on this success with commercial products that make a difference." Dr. Guestrin is the Amazon Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Washington.

"Graph data is fundamentally different than other datasets and the analytics solutions that companies are using are time intensive to create and to maintain. There is a significant need for graph-specific solutions to answer some of the bigger questions of our time," said Matt McIlwain, Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group.  "Carlos Guestrin is an exceptional talent who brings both business and engineering experience to the table and we are excited to help build this important company with him and his exceptional team."

Many well-known companies and services rely on GraphLab software to get more out of their data.  "The software being written by the GraphLab team is second to none. They consistently raise the bar for graph-based machine learning." - Eric Bieschke, Chief Scientist, Pandora Internet Radio.

"We at WalmartLabs have been following the GraphLab project closely since its inception. GraphLab is amazingly fast compared with other options and is especially well-suited for systems involving large-scale iterative machine learning methods.  An extension of GraphLab makes big data analytics come true even over a laptop.  We are impressed and eager to see what's next." - Lei Tang, Data Scientist at Walmart Labs.

Complex data sets such as those describing social media networks are commonly described as graph datasets.  These graphs describe relationships between people, the products they buy, the pages they like, etc.  Graph datasets require novel computational methods, machine learning algorithms, and specialized systems in order to effectively and efficiently analyze outcomes.  GraphLab Inc. will introduce version 2.2 to the GraphLab open source project at the annual GraphLab workshop in San Francisco on July 1st.

As part of the funding, Matt McIlwain of Madrona Venture Group and Greg Papadopoulos of NEA will be joining the board, with Forest Baskett from NEA as an observer.    

GraphLab Inc has established an industry Technical Advisory Board which includes:

• Joe Hellerstein - Co-Founder and CEO of Trifacta Inc., and a Chancellor's Professor of Computer Science at University of California, Berkeley.
• Michael I. Jordan - Michael I. Jordan, a leading researcher in machine learning, is the Pehong Chen Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Department of Statistics at  the University of California, Berkeley.
• Hank Levy  - Chairman and Wissner-Slivka Chair in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at University of Washington, co-founder of Skytap and Performant (acquired by Mercury Interactive in 2003).
• Kai Li - Co-founder of Data Domain (acquired by EMC for $2.1 billion in 2009), a Paul M. Wythes '55, P'86, and Marcia R. Wythes P'86 Professor In the Computer Science Department of Princeton University.
• Sujal Patel - Founder and former CEO of Isilon Systems (acquired by EMC for $2.5 billion in 2010).
• Chris Stolte - Co-founder and Chief Development Officer, Tableau Software.

About GraphLab Inc.

GraphLab Inc. is building the fastest machine learning analytics engine for graph datasets. Started in 2009 as an open source project by Carlos Guestrin, the software is used daily for millions of recommendations in popular consumer services.  GraphLab is based in Seattle.

About Madrona Venture Group

Madrona (www.madrona.com) has been investing in early-stage technology companies in the Pacific Northwest since 1995 and has been privileged to play a role in some of the region's most successful technology ventures. The firm invests predominately in seed and Series A rounds across the information technology spectrum including consumer Internet, commercial software and services, digital media and advertising, networking and cloud computing, and mobile. Madrona manages nearly $1 billion and was an early investor in companies such as Amazon.com, Apptio, Isilon Systems, Sharebuilder, and World Wide Packets.

About NEA

New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a leading venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With more than $13 billion in committed capital, NEA invests in information technology, healthcare and energy technology companies at all stages in a company's lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's long track record includes more than 175 portfolio company IPOs and more than 290 acquisitions. In the U.S., NEA has offices in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area; Menlo Park, California; and New York City. In addition, New Enterprise Associates (India) Pvt. Ltd. has offices in Bangalore and Mumbai, India and New Enterprise Associates (Beijing), Ltd. has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, China. For additional information, visit www.nea.com.

CONTACT: Erika Shaffer, Madrona Venture Group, +1-206-972-5514, erika@madrona.com

SOURCE Madrona Venture Group