Atlan said on Wednesday it had raised $105 million in a funding round led by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and tech investor Meritech Capital that valued the artificial intelligence startup at $750 million.
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
Top technology companies are racing to build AI into their products and services. Startups catering to the surge in demand for AI chips and learning have been a bright spot in an otherwise subdued private funding market.
Data is the building block of the AI revolution which has taken Wall Street by storm. Generative AI aims to make human-like creations through computer code that has processed vast amounts of data.
CONTEXT
Atlan, which has raised more than $206 million following the latest series C round, operates an eponymous data stack that brings together diverse data from internal and external sources to one interface.
Its customers include software firm Autodesk ADSK.O, luxury retailer Ralph Lauren RL.N, exchange operator Nasdaq NDAQ.O and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp NWSA.O.
In March 2022, it raised $50 million in a fundraise at a valuation of $450 million led by Salesforce Ventures, Insight Partners and Sequoia Capital India.
KEY QUOTES
"The legacy players in our space include Informatica, Collibra, and Alation — and we win three quarters of the deals when we compete head-to-head with them," Atlan Co-founder Prukalpa Sankar told Reuters.
"Without the control plane Atlan has built, organizations will continue to struggle with getting major business initiatives like AI readiness and data democratization actually up and running," said Rob Ward, co-founder, Meritech Capital.
BY THE NUMBERS
Atlan said its revenue has surged over seven-fold in the last two years.
It also recorded a 400% growth in enterprise sales in the first quarter.
WHAT'S NEXT
The company intends to use the new capital to expand product development and its operations.