BlueData raises $20M, aims to expand Big Data footprint

Big Data Company, BlueData that designs and develops software for deployment of big data systems and applications for companies, claims to have raised $20 million in Series C funding. The investment round was led by Intel Capital along with participation from existing investors including Amplify Partners, Atlantic Bridge, and Ignition Partners. The company has also hinted at the involvement of an undisclosed, new key investor. The fresh flow of funds will be used to scale and bolster the company’s footprint in the Big Data world. The firm also plans to bolster its software development and innovation, along with expanding its engineering, sales, business development and marketing teams. As a part of the deal, Doug Fisher, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Software and Services Group, Intel will join the board of directors at BlueData. This marks the third Intel Capital investment in BlueData since 2012. “The value of Big Data is huge, and the interest among enterprises continues to grow. BlueData’s software platform complements Intel’s initiatives in Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark, as well as our technology advancements in data center virtualization and container technology on Intel architecture,” said Fisher. While, BlueData offers Big-Data-as-a-Service (BDaaS) to install Hadoop and Spark infrastructure on-premises or in the public cloud, its virtualization software, BlueData EPIC (Elastic Private Instant Clusters) claims to help companies with Hadoop and Spark adoption with data and analytical tools in virtual environments. Reportedly, it also delivers Hadoop-as-a-Service in an on-premises deployment model, with the enterprise-grade security and governance that IT teams require. In addition, the company has also announced to have signed a partnership with Intel which will see BlueData optimize and develop its software on Intel Xeon processor technology. This could mean good business for Intel and hiked chip sales. The agreement aims at accelerating big data adoption for enterprises by simplifying deployment. And on the other hand, the chipmaker will “focus its engineering and marketing resources on the joint engineering roadmap and joint customer acquisition.” Brian Krzanich, CEO, Intel, said:

Intel architecture provides a high-performance, secure, robust foundation for big data analytics. BlueData’s innovative software delivers the simplicity, agility and efficiency of big data-as-a-service in an on-premises model. Together, we are focused on bringing big data into the mainstream and unlocking the value for our enterprise customers.

Kumar Sreekanti, Co-Founder and CEO, BlueData, stated: “This strategic collaboration with Intel will help advance BlueData’s mission of making it easy to deploy big data infrastructure. Our software platform simplifies the complexity, reduces the cost and delivers faster time to value for big data initiatives.”

Our go-to-market relationship and joint product development with Intel will allow enterprises to accelerate their deployment of Hadoop and Spark, and deliver on the promise of big data analytics.

He also believes, while infrastructure is the foundation, it will be the apps that drive adoption of Big Data solutions. In another company blog, Sreekanti continued, “To simplify the consumption model for Big Data, enterprises need a self-service ‘app store’ experience on their infrastructure. They need a solution that can obscure the complexity of Big Data infrastructure to deploy these new apps in minutes, instead of weeks or months. This is BlueData’s vision.”