Sigma Computing, launched in 2014 by Jason Frantz and Rob Woollen, visualises and analyses data from Snowflake and Google BigQuery using a spreadsheet-like interface. Two former software developers founded Sigma to address the data challenges faced by large organisations, such as cumbersome tools and difficult-to-manage data warehouses.
In a 2023 Oracle poll, most business executives indicated their employer’s data and analytics strategy wasn’t meeting their expectations. Of the dashboards and charts they receive, 77% are irrelevant to their decisions, and 72% say the amount of data and their lack of faith in it have prevented them from making judgements.
After seeing the enormous developments in cloud data infrastructure throughout the previous decade, Jason and Rob spotted a gap in the market’, Sigma Computing CEO Mike Palmer told Eltrys. Sigma is creating a data workspace for everyone, where teams can analyze data in spreadsheets, produce business intelligence in dashboards and reports, and construct data processes and apps so knowledge never leaves a company’s data warehouse.
In 2014, Sigma initially provided only basic business intelligence and analytics solutions to connect to customers’ external databases. At Sutter Hill Ventures, Frantz and Woollen founded the company as entrepreneurs-in-residence. Woollen came from Salesforce’s Work.com.org. The company immediately developed.
Sigma now offers solutions for “in-place” data analysis in databases with billions of entries. Customers may use the platform to construct dashboards, reports, processes, and applications without data loss.
Palmer said they promote “massive multiplayer business intelligence,” a dynamic environment where experts of various technical levels can use their abilities in real time on the same platform.
Successful go-to-market approach.
Palmer reports that Sigma has seen four consecutive years of 100% sales growth, driven by a ~1,000-company client base. Investors like such numbers. Avenir Growth Capital and Spark Capital led Sigma’s $200 million Series D fundraising on Thursday, valuing the firm at $1.5 billion, a 60% increase from its 2021 estimate of $300 million.
Sigma’s success against Tableau and Microsoft’s Power BI has been a concentration on low-barrier data analytics solutions, according to Palmer.
Palmer added, “‘Super-analysts’ — individuals who work within lines of business and understand enterprise-scale data manipulation — primarily designed existing business intelligence platforms.” Business intelligence is a major obstacle for most individuals. Jason and Rob realised there was a huge market of clever individuals who had been disregarded by technical tools or given simplistic tools to ask simple questions.
Business intelligence and analytics technologies are vast and rapidly developing, which may be helpful. Market research company Precedence Research predicts the business intelligence industry will grow from $27.24 billion in 2022 to $54.9 billion in 2023.
With $581 million in venture capital and 450 employees, Sigma plans to expand its U.S. and international operations and invest in AI, including integrations with generative AI platforms like OpenAI to allow users to ask questions about their company’s data.
Palmer predicted that systems like Databricks and Snowflake will increasingly centralise data due to the volume of data, the speed of change, governance issues, and security concerns. Provide your staff with raw, live data and tools to construct and communicate to operate synchronously and at high velocity in competitive organisations. We need a platform that enables individuals to access data according to their skills.
Investors in Sigma Series D included Snowflake, Sutter Hill, D1, Xn, and Altimeter Capital.
