Splice Machine Deepens Accenture Partnership, Raises $16 Million In Series B Funding

Operational artificial intelligence platform developer Splice Machine has raised $16 million in a Series B round of financing led by GreatPoint Ventures with participation by Accenture Ventures and SunBridge Group CEO Allen Miner.

The Accenture investment extends the global systems integrator's relationship with Splice Machine beyond a partnership announced in October under which the company offers Splice Machine's software as part of the analytics-as-a-service Accenture Insights Platform. Accenture and Splice Machine also will now jointly sell the Splice Machine software for vertical industry tasks.

"This is a fantastic opportunity for us," said Monte Zweben, Splice Machine co-founder and CEO, in an interview. "Together [with Accenture] we will deliver new solutions that incorporate Splice Machine technology for specific verticals, delivering operational AI that integrates with business process workloads."

[Related: Accenture, Microsoft Bolster Partnership With New Business Group]

Splice Machine, founded in 2012 and based in San Francisco, developed a SQL-based hybrid relational database that is the core of the company's big data platform used to run predictive applications that manage operational processes, IoT networks, analytical tasks and machine learning.

More recently, the company has been targeting its software for operational AI tasks that support mission-critical business applications and digital transformation initiatives, touting the software's combination of analytics, machine learning and operational workload management into a single AI platform.

"It's difficult to inject AI into the fabric of an enterprise," Zweben said, noting that such efforts involve operational data and operational workloads, incorporate machine learning models, and require enterprise-scale analytics and data warehouse technology.

In November 2017, Accenture made a similar move when it acquired a minority stake in Paxata, a developer of big data preparation software, and likewise incorporated Paxata’s technology into the Accenture Insight Platform.

The new round of funding brings Splice Machine's total financing to $58 million.

Splice Machine said the new funding will be used to accelerate development of its data platform, expand its go-to-market efforts, and grow its engineering and customer success teams both in the U.S. and globally, the company said in the funding announcement. Some of the funding will be plowed back into the Accenture partnership.

The new funding comes after a year of what the company described as significant growth, including tripling the revenue and number of customers since its previous funding. The company said it has won new customers in the financial services, healthcare, supply chain and energy industries.