Keboola, the data platform-as-a-service startup, has closed a $4.5 million seed financing round led by Presto Ventures. Joining the round was Reflex Capital, the VC fund of Mall Group founder Ondřej Fryc, as well as a number of prominent angel investors, including Eduard Kučera, founder of Avast, and Tomáš Čupr, founder of Rohlik Group. Up until the current round of funding, Keboola has been entirely self-funded, having been officially founded in 2017 after nearly a decade running in bootstrap mode. Keboola is on track to achieve an annual subscription revenue (ARR) of more than $8 million in 2022.
Initially limited to the largest enterprises, the desire to mine data has now reached the point where many companies – even SMBs – are looking to mine data insights, automate the process data and create applications to harness the value of data. However, industry analysts always note that most companies are struggling. Gartner estimates that 80% of organizations will be unable to grow their digital businesses due to outdated data and analytics approaches. One of the main obstacles to progress is the cost of integrating expensive engineering teams in specific business divisions. Turning business intelligence into a product is an approach that, according to McKinsey research, can reduce turnaround time by up to 90%. But managing data and infrastructure has always been difficult and expensive.
Keboola’s platform addresses the complexity and cost challenges currently plaguing DataOps. It provides end-to-end infrastructure for businesses of all sizes, with a user interface that can be operated by any non-technical business user, and backend API integration for developers. By integrating the entire data stack and automating all infrastructure operations, Keboola reduces maintenance and management friction and allows organizations to focus entirely on transformation. data into new and intelligent business products. Data engineers have a completely open-source platform that they can easily customize. Business users benefit from an easy-to-use, code-free user interface. Keboola brings together popular modern data stack tools like dbt, Apache Spark, MLflow, OpenLineage, Jupyter, and Hightouch under one roof, with a single hard-wired interface for enterprise administration.
“We believe in the potential of data and AI to fundamentally transform any business. But this requires tons of time and money to build and maintain infrastructure. Today, only Amazon, Google and a handful of other companies are really able to make the most of their data. We want to unlock the data opportunity for all others.”
“The priority is to help clients turn data into money. Our platform approach removes infrastructure from the equation and puts the focus on the data. The result is a solution that is like a luxury car with every conceivable option available and the best possible engine in Snowflake. We are strongly influenced by our belief in openness and data mesh principles,”
Pavel Dolezal, co-founder and CEO of Keboola.
Snowflake, which offers Keboola as a self-service BI platform in the ‘Powered by Snowflake’ program, designed the fully scalable Keboola platform. Keboola also offers enterprise-level governance and security. The platform is totally open, enabling third-party app integrations and providing a variety of versatile code languages. Wide-ranging customizability is made possible by these features, giving businesses the option to create their own components and code, including machine learning algorithms.
The company will use the money to accelerate growth in Europe and North America. His current clients include RBI (restaurants), DXC, ProductBoard, Mall Group and Rohlik Group, in a variety of sectors such as retail, e-commerce, marketing, financial services and hospitality. Keboola is expected to at least double its revenue by 2023.
Use cases include more accurate sales forecasting, automating supply chain logistics, and accelerating product and feature development. Mall Group, the leading e-commerce group in Central Europe, has reversed a year-long data analytics backlog and is capable of producing more than 400 data products and features per year. Sports retailer Sportissimo achieved a 5% increase in revenue by issuing 12 million daily next-day sales forecasts for more than 38,000 products in five countries, significantly reducing inventory. in the warehouse and more accurate automated supply chain logistics across 190 retail locations shop.
“The Keboola team has been ahead of its time with its product. They have done a fantastic job of scaling the company organically and turning Keboola into a cult company within the data analytics and business intelligence community. We are excited to back them to accelerate that growth and win in a global market predicted to reach $655 billion by 2029.”
Premysl Rubes, the founder of lead investor Presto Ventures.
Keboola is a Snowflake-based data platform as a service that enables users to move quickly through their data projects. Keboola is a firm believer in giving everyone the power to make data-driven choices. It offers a special solution for every data-driven firm when combined with Snowflake. From startups to large corporations, everywhere in the world and in every market.
Keboola was founded in 2017 and is based in Prague with remote teams working all over the world. To date, the company has raised $4.5 million from Presto Ventures and a number of illustrious angel investors.
