Pyramid Analytics, a business and analytics company, raises $ 100 million – TechCrunch

Business analytics is becoming an increasingly well-funded category in the software market as a service. By processing large amounts of data to analyze and compare business lines, BI promises to help identify, develop and otherwise create new revenue opportunities.

The ubiquitous BI remains elusive, however statistics in the category show that about a third of employees use BI tools for analytics to inform strategy. The big data and business intelligence market could be worth $ 684 billion by 2030, according to to the Valuates Reports report, if you believe such outrageously high ratings.

The segment contains too many vendors to count – some include Nougat, Fractal analytics, TrendsLatentView and Mu Sigma. But in any case, there is a lot of capital – as evidenced Pyramid analytics“The last round of funding. Pyramid, which calls itself a decision-making platform, today announced that it has raised $ 120 million in E-Series funding led by HIG Growth Partners, Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings and General Oriental Investments for an estimate of “nearly” $ 1 billion. Co-founder and CEO Omri Kohl said the fresh money will be used to expand Pyramid’s global presence, hire new employees and improve the company’s existing software products.

The pyramid began in 2009 when Cole and co-founders Avi Perez and Herbert Ochtman secured a development partnership with Microsoft that evolved into a full-featured BI product. Previously, Ochtman was a co-founder of several companies, notably Urix, a medical data analytics firm, while Cole launched his own startups, including the “micropayments” platform Pdway.

“In short, data groups in corporate analytics are stuck in the past. It is difficult to scale the data-based decision-making process in an increasingly complex world. Many tools are outdated, broken or just too difficult to use, ”Kohl said. “We saw an opportunity to help companies … change the way people make decisions with data. We built a road map for [Pyramid,] which combines data preparation, business intelligence and data science with the power of AI and the security of regulated self-service ”.

Pyramid uses machine learning and AI to automate some of the technical work involved in preparing business data, analyzing it, and creating and sharing collaborative reports and dashboards. The self-service code platform also uses artificial intelligence to provide explanations in specific areas of interest by tapping a query mechanism that accesses data where it is stored.

Cole calls it “supplemented analytics,” a phrase he says reflects the use of AI to “generate insight” to support how people understand data. “C-suite-based decision-making is now expected, and traditional BI tools do not provide the capability,” he added. “There comes decision-making analysis coming together, combining different data sources into one intelligent platform for automated understanding.”

Customers, especially in regulated industries, may be fairly concerned about how Pyramid processes their data. But Cole says the query machine company, Pyrana, doesn’t need to move or transform data to perform operations with it.

“Piranha takes analytics to data. This [reduces] data latency and data limitations that cripple for a remote employee. You can only download as much data to your laptop. Thus, only a subset of datasets can be used at a time, ”he said. “In essence, our customers leave their data where it is and transfer analytics to their data.”

The challenge faced by Pyramid and its competitors is one of expectations. Fifty-four percent of users responded to Fr. poll from SoftwareReviews said they were unhappy with BI vendors who were not performing, and expressed disappointment that the platforms were unable to provide new insights or find opportunities to improve the business. In many cases, features that BI vendors actively promote are achievable through existing platforms such as Microsoft Power BI, Qlik and Tableau.

Some executives also don’t want to use a BI tool they don’t trust. And 2021 poll published in the MIT Sloan Management Review, found that many business people choose to make their own decisions when providing proposals to the AI ​​system, regardless of the historical accuracy of the system.

Kohl insists the Pyramid is different, pointing to its sharp rise in recent months. The company has 2,450 clients (albeit a combination of direct and indirect), including the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the company’s revenue has grown 100% over last year. Obviously, investors are confident – the subscription to the E-series has exceeded $ 20 million.

“Differentiation is crucial – quality and completeness are key. No wonder we are brutally independent. We want to stay true to our promises to provide customers with rich analytics, just as Adobe has created a suite for data-based projects, ”said Col. “We offer both strong complementary analytics capabilities and a full set of traditional analytics capabilities.”

Jerusalem Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital and Viola Growth also participated in the E Pyramid series, bringing the company to a total of $ 211 million. Pyramid currently has 245 employees in London, New York and Tel Aviv, and the company expects to approach 350 by the end of the year.