In 2014, Jason Frantz and Rob Woolen co-founded Sigma Computing, a platform that overlays data stored in data platforms such as Snowflake and Google BigQuery with a spreadsheet-like interface for data visualization and analysis. With Sigma, the two former software engineers sought to tackle what they perceived as intractable data challenges facing large companies: cumbersome tools and hard-to-manage data warehouses.
In 2023 overview by Oracle, the majority of business leaders said they don’t believe their employer’s current approach to data and analytics meets their needs. Seventy-seven percent said the dashboards and graphs they receive don’t respond to the decisions they need to make, and 72% admit that the sheer volume of data – and a lack of trust in that data – has at times prevented them from making decisions completely.
“After recognizing the tremendous advances in cloud data infrastructure over the past decade, Jason and Rob identified a gap in the market,” Sigma Computing CEO Mike Palmer told TechCrunch. “Sigma creates a data workspace for everyone — where teams can analyze data in spreadsheets, create business intelligence in the form of dashboards and reports, and build data workflows and applications where data never leaves the warehouse data of a company”.
Out of the gate (in 2014), Sigma offered only a set of basic business intelligence and analytics tools to connect to a customer’s external databases. But the company — which Frantz and Woolen founded while entrepreneurs in residence at Sutter Hill Ventures, Woolen coming from Salesforce’s Work.com org — grew quickly from there.
Today, Sigma’s product suite consists of tools that allow users to analyze data “in situ” in databases containing up to billions of records. Customers can tap into the platform to build dashboards, reports, workflows and applications without data leaving its source.
“We support what we call ‘massive multiplayer business intelligence,’ a dynamic environment where professionals, regardless of technical expertise, come together to leverage their unique skills, all in real time, all within the same platform,” he said. Palmer.
The go-to-market strategy has proven to be profitable.
According to Palmer, Sigma’s revenue has grown 100% year over year for four consecutive years thanks to a customer base of ~1,000 companies. These figures satisfy investors. On Thursday, Sigma closed a $200 million Series D funding round, led by Avenir Growth Capital and Spark Capital, that values the company at $1.5 billion, up 60% from its 2021 valuation (when it raised 300 million dollars).
Palmer believes that the key to Sigma’s success in the face of stiff competition, such as Tableau and Microsoft’s Power BI, has been a continued focus on creating data analytics tools with a low barrier to entry.
“Existing business intelligence platforms were primarily designed for ‘hyper-analysts’ – people who work within lines of business and understand the intricacies of manipulating data at an enterprise scale,” said Palmer. “For most people, business intelligence has been – and remains – a significant barrier. Jason and Rob believed that there was a huge market of smart people who were either being ignored by more technical tools or were given simple tools that only allowed them to ask simple questions.”
It probably doesn’t hurt that the market for business intelligence and analytics tools is huge — and growing at a very healthy pace. According In Precedence Research, a market research firm, the business intelligence sector alone will grow from $27.24 billion in 2022 to $54.9 billion by 2023.
With Sigma’s massive war chest — $581 million in venture capital — and a staff of about 450, the company plans to grow its operations in the U.S. and internationally and invest in AI, specifically integrations with AI platforms like OpenAI for to allow users to ask questions about information about their company.
“We believe that due to the volume of data, speed of change and governance, as well as security requirements, data will increasingly be centralized in systems like Databricks and Snowflake,” said Palmer. “For competitive businesses to operate in sync and at high speed, you need to provide your employees with raw, live data and the tools to create and communicate together. And they need a platform that allows them to access that data with whatever skills they have.”
Snowflake Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, D1 Ventures, Xn Ventures and Altimeter Capital also participated in Sigma’s Series D.
