VCs Back Startups’ Solutions For Siloed Enterprise Data

Though B2B FinTech firms looking to disrupt small business (SMB) banking and expense management made some noise this week, the real focus for B2B venture capitalists (VCs) centered on the data analytics space, particularly as businesses struggle to capture the data they need as it’s stored across disparate platforms. In total, nearly $128 million in fresh funding was raised this week by business-focused tech startups, more than one-quarter of that going to data management firms. PYMNTS gives the rundown on those investments below.

Penta

Germany’s small business banking startup Penta raised more than $8 million from investors this week, according to EU-Startups. The funding was led by Inception Capital, which added to the firm’s nearly $11.5 million investment round earlier this year. Penta plans to focus on hiring efforts with the new funding, as well as bolstering its customer acquisition and marketing efforts. Furthermore, reports said, Penta will introduce new features for its small business users, including integrated accounting and cross-border payments.

Incorta

This startup’s data analytics offering caught the attention of Microsoft, and its venture capital unit M12 (along with Telstra Ventures), which led the $15 million Series B funding round for the company. Incorta provides businesses with data analytics software capable of assessing information across software platforms, using business intelligence, data warehousing, visualization technology and extract, transform, load (ETL) to consolidate and examine the information. Designed for corporate IT teams, Incorta enables businesses to more efficiently deliver analytical reports. The funding is an extension of its previous Series B round, the company said in a press release, bringing the total Series B funding raised to $30 million.

Crux

With $20 million in new Series B funding, Crux Informatics plans to focus on scale and enhance its data analytics platform. The company provides businesses with data engineering and information supply chain solutions, focusing on helping businesses make sense of data stored across disparate systems. The company offers a platform to maintain businesses’ data supply chains, which secured the support of investors at Two Sigma, Goldman Sachs’ Principal Strategic Investment Group and Citi, the company announced this week.

Seva

Another startup targeting enterprise data silos is Seva, which offers a way for professionals to access information stored across their companies’ Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms. Reports said this week the company raised $2.4 million in Seed funding for its solution that is currently running in beta. Avalon Ventures led the investment, while Studio VC and Datadog Founder and CEO Olivier Pomel also participated. Seva can currently support data accessibility from Gmail, Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack and a range of other platforms, which additional services to be added moving forward. The new funding will go toward expanding its engineering team, with hopes of landing Series A funding by the end of 2019 as Seva prepares for a general release of its solution.

WhiteSource

WhiteSource focuses on cybersecurity with a particular focus on open source technology. The firm’s platform alerts users of open source software if they are using tools with unpatched bugs, reports in CyberScoop said this week. The company just announced $35 million in Series C funding, with CEO and Co-founder Rami Sass telling reporters that recent data breach events — like the Equifax breach caused by an unpatched version of the open source software solution Apache Struts — emphasize the need for this kind of solution. Susquehanna Growth Equity led the investment round, while 83North and Microsoft’ M12 also participated, according to reports. WhiteSource plans to use the funding to focus on growth and customer acquisition.

TravelPerk

The $44 million Series C funding for Spain-based, corporate-travel-booking solution TravelPerk will be used to focus on growth and enter new markets, Travel Weekly said. The company offers businesses a platform on which they can book travel with integrated incentives to promote in-policy bookings. With the latest funding, provided by Kinnevik, Yuri Milner and Tom Stafford (plus existing backers Felix Capital, Target Global, Spark Capital, LocalGlobe, Sunstone and Amplo), the company has its eyes set on the U.K., Netherlands, Germany and France. In addition, reports said, TravelPerk aims to heighten its customer base by attracting more SMB users, as well as to integrate expense management capabilities into its solution.