Big Data Analytics Startup Raises $25.5 Million

Visier Inc. | BCBusiness
The company has raised $49.5 million to date, including last year’s $15 million round.

Vancouver-based Visier Inc. plans to expand its local presence and focus on new business intelligence markets with this latest round

Visier Inc., a developer of workforce analytics and planning software, announced Tuesday that it had closed a $25.5 million round of fundraising, its third to date.

The investment caps a big year for Visier, which tripled its revenue growth in 2013, and continues to grow at the same rate, according to the privately-held company. In the past six months it has signed contracts with Exelon, McGraw Hill Financial, Time Inc. and Baker Hughes, amongst other large corporate clients.

Visier builds products that allow companies to take nearly any source of data, and incorporate it into workforce benchmarking and planning. With this latest round, the company will focus on new business intelligence market segments, beyond human resources.

“Now that we have information about the employee population, we will add other types of business data—such as sales and marketing—and link that to business outcomes,” says John Schwarz, Visier Inc. CEO.

Thursday’s investment which brings the company’s total financing to date to $49.5 million, is led by Adams Street Partners, a blue chip private equity firm. Previous investors Foundation Capital and Summit Partners also participated in the round, and $1.5 million of the latest round came from friends and family.

“Applied big data is the future of enterprise operations,” said Mike Zappert, principal at Adams Street Partners, in a statement. “There’s a tremendous opportunity for Visier to fundamentally change the way organizations ask and answer business questions.”

Visier is the second Vancouver startup with roots in the current SAP office in Yaletown, previously Crystal Decisions, then Business Objects, to announce a major round of investment in the last week. On Thursday, marketing analytics startup Allocadia Software announced that it had closed a $7 million round of investment.

Vancouver has deep resources of engineers with skills in analytics, says Josie Sutcliffe, director of product marketing at Visier, pointing to SAP’s legacy. “We’ve been able to hire a lot of really skilled experts in analytics.”

They are, however, separate companies focused on different markets, says Schwarz, who was CEO of Business Objects, then SAP Business Objects, from 2005 to 2010.

With offices in both Vancouver and San Jose, Visier plans to double its local presence to in excess of 100 by the end of 2014. As for going public, says Schwarz, “that is the plan, but in the near future, no. We’re still three years away from that option.”