2018 Big Data 100: 30 Coolest Business Analytics Vendors
Coolly Analytical
Business analysis tools are the top of the big data tools pyramid, the data visualization and analysis software that everyone from statisticians, to market analysts, to every-day information workers, use to derive insight and value from ever-growing volumes of data.
MarketsandMarkets recently forecast that the business intelligence and analytics software market would reach $26.78 billion by 2020.
As part of the 2018 Big Data 100, we've put together a list of 30 business analytics software companies that solution providers should be aware of, offering everything from simple-to-use reporting and visualization tools to highly sophisticated software for tackling the most complex data analysis problems.
Alteryx
Top Executive: CEO Dean Stoecker
Alteryx develops a data analytics platform that incorporates data discovery, blending and preparation, analysis and management capabilities.
In March the company launched Alteryx Promote, a new component of the Alteryx Analytics platform that data scientists and "citizen" data scientists use to deploy predictive models directly into business applications.
Anodot
Top Executive: David Drai
Anodot's real-time analytics and automated anomaly detection system detects outliers in time series data and turns it into business insights. The software's machine learning technology analyzes business data to identify business incidents, helping managers remedy problems and take advantage of opportunities.
In December Anadot raised $23 million in Series B financing and announced that the company tripled its revenue in the past year.
Arcadia Data
Top Executive: CEO Sushil Thomas
Arcadia Data provides unified visual analytics and business intelligence software that can access and analyze large volumes of data in such systems as Hadoop, data lakes and in the cloud without the need to move it to a data warehouse.
A new release of Arcadia Enterprise in March offered greater scalability in data volumes and concurrent users, the ability to handle a wider variety of data formats, and new self-service and data governance capabilities.
Attivio
Top Executive: CEO Stephen Baker
Attivio's cognitive search and insight platform incorporates natural language processing, machine learning, knowledge graphing, search analytics and text analytics technologies.
Birst
Top Executive: SVP and General Manager Brad Peters
Birst, acquired by application vendor Infor last year, develops what it calls networked business intelligence and analytics software, a cloud-based system that uses a common data-as-a-service fabric to connect people and data throughout an organization.
ClearStory Data
Top Executive: CEO Sharmila Mulligan
ClearStory Data's cloud-based system, built on the Apache Spark engine, provides a rapid way to discover, prepare and blend data from disparate sources and make it available to business users for analysis.
In March ClearStory Data debuted new artificial intelligence-based "Instant Data Discovery" capabilities that identify intricate patterns in complex, blended data, according to the company.
Also in March the company raised $15 million in Series C financing.
Cooladata
Top Executive: CEO Dan Schoenbaum
Cooladata's behavioral analytics software collects, unifies and analyzes data from web sites, CRM systems, mobile applications, marketing campaigns and in-house databases to help businesses understand their customers, improve their products and services, and increase sales.
Datameer
Top Executive: CEO Christian Rodatus
Datameer develops data preparation, exploration, governance and analysis software used to transform complex, diverse data into a network of pipelines that feed data into analytics systems throughout an enterprise.
In November Datameer introduced an edition of its software that runs in the cloud on Amazon Web Services.
Domo
Top Executive: CEO Josh James
Domo's cloud-based system creates a portal that provides real-time operational data and business performance information to CEOs and other executives.
In April the company released a connector for AWS IoT Analytics, making it possible to connect Internet of Things information with data from other sources for analysis.
In April Recode reported that the high-visibility Domo, which was last valued at more than $2 billion, was preparing an Initial Public Offering.
GoodData
Top Executive: CEO Roman Stanek
GoodData is focused on embedded analytics with its Platform-as-a-Service system that developers of applications for retail, insurance and financial service industry customers use to build business analytics into their software.
In February GoodData was awarded a patent for its multi-tenant platform that distributes analytical applications to multiple customers.
In April GoodData debuted analytical software for insurance claims and underwriting business processes, automating data integration and providing business analytics capabilities to insurance workflows.
Hitachi Vantara
Top Executive: CEO Brian Householder
In September 2017 Hitachi created the Hitachi Vantara company combining the company's Hitachi Data Systems business, along with its cloud, Internet of Things, big data and business analytics products, all under one roof. A core Vantara product is Pentaho, the data integration, business analytics and data visualization software developer that Hitachi acquired in 2015.
In March Hitachi Vantara Labs unveiled new machine learning orchestration tools, available as a plug-in through the Pentaho Marketplace, to help data scientists better monitor, test, retrain and redeploy predictive models in production.
Incorta
Top Executive: CEO Osama Elkady
Incorta's mission is to replace traditional data warehouse systems and ETL (extract, transform and load) tools with its data platform for real-time analytics and operational reporting.
Incorta's software uses what the company calls a "Direct Data Mapping" engine that executes complex data joins with real-time aggregations of huge volumes of data.
In February Incorta hired former Apple and Hewlett Packard product development leader Mohamed Dekhil as vice president of engineering, overseeing all product development and engineering operations at the company.
Information Builders
Top Executive: President and CEO Gerald Cohen
Information Builders, a long-time player in the business analytics arena, offers its WebFocus integrated platform for business intelligence, analytics, data integration and data quality management.
In October IBI launched WebFocus Accelerators, a set of pre-built analytical content that's designed to reduce WebFocus implementation times within specific vertical industries and for specific use cases.
Kyvos Insights
Top Executive: CEO Praveen Kankariya
Kyvos Insight's big data OLAP (online analytics processing) platform is used by businesses and organizations to analyze massive volumes of data stored in big data systems such as Hadoop, whether they are on-premise or in the cloud.
Logi Analytics
Top Executive: CEO Steven Schneider
Logi Analytics has undergone some significant changes, undertaking a major overhaul in product positioning and packaging to focus on providing BI and analytics technology for embedding in websites and mission-critical applications.
The company debuted Logi 12.5 in November with new self-service visual analysis capabilities and improved data access functionality
Looker
Top Executive: CEO Frank Bien
Looker's big data platform provides analytics, business intelligence, visualization and data management capabilities, all with an eye on providing data-driven insights to everyday business users.
One way Looker helps speed up time-to-analysis is through Looker Blocks, pre-built pieces of code for accessing external data, data modeling, data analysis and visualization.
Maana
Top Executive: CEO Babur Ozden
Maana develops "knowledge-centric" data search and discovery software. The Maana Knowledge Platform, based on the company's patented Knowledge Graph technology and algorithms, collects data from multiple disparate systems and turns it into operational insights that can be used by line-of-business applications.
In February the company debuted Maana Q, which adds enhanced self-service capabilities to the Maana platform by allowing analysts and subject matter experts to develop a "knowledge layer" over operational and industrial data.
Maana raised $28 million in Series C funding in December.
MapD Technologies
Top Executive: CEO Todd Mostak
MapD Technologies offers what it calls "the extreme analytics platform," a GPU database platform for interactive SQL and real-time visual analytics tasks involving massive sets of structured data.
In April MapD debuted MapD Cloud, a Software-as-a-Service edition of its GPU-accelerated analytics software.
Microsoft
Top Executive: CEO Satya Nadella
Microsoft markets a range of products in the big data space, with the SQL Server database, Azure software (including Azure Data Lake, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Data Warehouse) and the Power BI analytics tool topping the product portfolio.
MicroStrategy
Top Executive: CEO Michael Saylor
One of the most established vendors in the big data analysis space, MicroStrategy develops enterprise business intelligence and analytics software, along with mobile software and cloud services. The company's Relational OLAP technology is a core tenant of its platform.
In April the company launched MicroStrategy 10.11with new custom charts for data visualization and new geospatial services.
Panorama Software
Top Executive: CEO Eynav Azarya
Panorama Software's flagship product, Necto, is a centrally administered, web-based business intelligence suite with a range of reporting and data mining capabilities that provide dashboards and infographics, key performance indicators, collaborative decision making and other content.
Plotly
Top Executive: Founder Alex Johnson
Plotly has developed a number of open-source tools for composing, editing and sharing interactive data analysis and visualization charts, graphs and dashboards via the Internet.
The company, also known by its URL "Plot.ly," is catching on among data scientists and developers who develop analytical applications using the Python and R programming languages.
Qlik
Top Executive: CEO Mike Capone
Qlik is one of the leading business analytics and data visualization software vendors, offering its original QlikView guided analytics and dashboarding application and the next-generation Qlik Sense visual analytics software.
In April Qlik enhanced its partner program with a simplified program framework and new revenue opportunities for partners, and launched a program track for Managed Service Providers to offer Qlik's analytics software as a cloud service.
Salesforce.com
Top Executive: CEO Marc Benioff
The fast-growing CRM application giant is also a major player in the business analytics space with its multiple analytical products including the Einstein Analytics Platform, Einstein Discovery and Einstein Analytics-based packaged analytical applications. The business analytics tools are tightly linked to the company's cloud sales and service applications.
SAS
Top Executive: CEO James Goodnight
SAS offers a huge portfolio of business analytics and data management software including the SAS Viya visual analytics platform designed for use by data scientists, business analysts, application developers and executives.
The company's product lineup also includes data preparation tools, statistical analysis software, customer intelligence applications, data preparation tools and analytical software for specific functions such as risk analysis and fraud detection.
SiSense
Top Executive: CEO Amir Orad
SiSense markets an integrated analytics and BI platform, including visual data exploration and advanced analytics, with built-in workflows from data collection to storage using an in-memory columnar database.
Sisense 7 was released in October 2017 with improved self-service data preparation and expanded cloud and mobile support. The company has strong market momentum with 70 percent revenue growth in 2017, with OEM and embedded applications accounting for more than half of the company's sales.
Tableau Software
Top Executive: President and CEP Adam Selipsky
Tableau is often perceived as the leader in the market for business intelligence and analytics platforms with its Tableau Server, Tableau Desktop and Tableau Cloud products and their interactive visual data exploration and analytical dashboard capabilities.
In April Tableau introduced Tableau Prep, a new data preparation product that helps business users combine, shape and clean data for use with Tableau's business analytics software.
ThoughtSpot
Top Executive: CEO Ajeet Singh
ThoughtSpot markets the ThoughtSpot business analytics platform that uses search and artificial intelligence technology to generate analysis and business insights from huge volumes of data. In October the company debuted SpotIQ, a new AI-driven analytics engine offered as part of the ThoughtSpot 4.4 system.
The industry took notice in May when the company raised $145 million in Series D venture funding, bringing its total financing to $306 million. In March the company said revenue in its fiscal 2018 fourth quarter (ended Jan. 31) grew 180 percent year-over-year.
Tibco
Top Executive: CEO Murray Rode
Tibco provides a number of data integration and business analytics software products. Tibco's Spotfire data discovery and analysis tool, with its interactive visualization capabilities and data preparation tools in a single package, helped transform the business analytics market from traditional reporting to modern analytics and BI.
In November Tibco acquired Alpine Data Labs and its cloud-based data science and social collaboration platform in a move that bolstered its data science technology and analytics product portfolio.
Zoomdata
Top Executive: Nick Halsey
Zoomdata pitches its visual analytics and data visualization software, based on its patented "Data Sharpening" technology, as the fastest in the industry. The analysis software works huge volumes of structured, unstructured and even streaming data.
In January Zoomdata added "Smart Streaming" capabilities to its platform, which enables easier connections to streaming data sources and the blending of streaming data with historical data.