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January 18, 2017

Data Governance Startup Gains Funding

(Tashatuvango/Shutterstock)

The growing importance of data governance tools used to ensure the integrity of business intelligence processes and methods are fueling investment as data volumes and types continue to grow.

In the latest example, data governance software vendor Collibra said this week it has pushed its venture funding total over $75 million with the close of a $50 million financing round. The Series
C round was led by San Francisco-based ICONIQ Capital with participation from investment firm Battery Ventures and return backers Dawn Capital, Index Ventures and Newion Investments.

Automated data governance and management tools such as New York-based Collibra’s represent an overarching strategy that defines how organizations ensure the data they use is clean, accurate, usable and secure. The result is trustworthy data.

In promoting its platform, Collibra contends that businesses “are increasingly adopting data governance as a ‘system of record’ to help them exercise control over the processes and methods employed by data users to improve data quality.” The startup is targeting the financial services, health care, retail, education and government markets.

Collibra released version 5.0 of its data governance platform in October, which it said adopts a broad, consumer-like approach to data governance. The startup likens its approach to allowing business users to “shop” for and locate relevant data much as they would shop for products on consumer sites.

Data governance startups are gaining traction as industry surveys find a widening gap between the growing desire to develop data-driven processes with analytics and declining trust in those analytical tools. For example, a survey released in November revealed that only one-third of executives said they actually trust their companies’ analytics tools.

Emerging data management platforms are designed to help companies move beyond ad hoc approaches to early big data projects so they can tackle more complex challenges with greater discipline using data derived from a formal governance strategy.

The elements of such a framework includes establishing procedures for how data is stored and secured along with guidelines for how authorized personnel can access and use data. Lastly, a data governance scheme establishes controls and procedures to ensure that those guidelines are in fact being followed.

Collibra and other data governance specialists refer to users who adhere to these guidelines as “data citizens.” The startup also offers a “data catalog” service designed to help data scientists and analysts reduce the amount of time searching for relevant data and more time solving problems.

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