3 Austin startups harnessing the power of data

by Amy Reagan
December 18, 2014
“The amount of data in our world has been exploding, and analyzing large data sets — so-called big data — will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus,” declared McKinsey Quarterly, a 50-year-running publication focusing on thought leadership in business, back in 2011. 
 
It came true, and the future is here: faced with more data than ever before, which also happens to be more accessible than ever before, solutions are in high demand when it comes to parsing all that information for something meaningful. Here, we take a look at two Austin tech startups, plus one recently-acquired venture, who are making strides in harnessing the power of data for use in competitive business environments.  
 

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Helping clients answer tough competitive strategy questions since 2007, Innography has positioned itself as a leader in intellectual property business intelligence. Its analysis and exploration tools combine powerful search capabilities with visualizations designed to cultivate insights quickly and with minimal information overload. Allowing organizations large and small to take full advantage of their IP investments with Innography’s patent search technology, it lets helps clients protect, manage and make the best possible use of their patent portfolios.
 
Innography has raised $16.5 million in funding in the past 7 years, including a $6.5 Series A round led by Austin Ventures and Covera, as well as a $3 million round in 2010 and $3.5 million in Series B funding in January (both rounds were led again by the same two investors, as well as Charles Stryker in the Series B round). It added $3.5 million in debt financing from Comerica bank in January as well. Its current product line includes Advanced Analysis, Innography Playbooks, Innography Explorer, PatentScout™ and PatentGuard™. Clients include global defense companies and Fortune 100 companies and conglomerates, among others. 
 
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Infochimps, a cloud service founded in 2009 that distills analytics and streamlines building and management processes in complex Big Data environments, is receiving accolades for its accessibility.
 
According to a BigData-Startups review, “The good thing about the Infochimps platform is that data scientists with minimal programming skills can use it. In today’s world where data scientists are scarce, this can be very valuable.” 
 
In short, Infochimps “helps businesses unlock the value of their data with speed, scale and flexibility. The Infochimps Platform is an innovative managed cloud service that streamlines building and managing complex Big Data environments, and distills analytics to deliver actionable intelligence faster.” Of the trust they engender in their clients, the brand says, “With Infochimps, companies can feel confident that they have the fastest way to deploy Big Data environments in public, virtual private, or private clouds.” 
 
Infochimps, advised by John Frankel of ffVc, has offices in Austin and Silicon Valley. Its accessibility and intelligent approach to Big Data environment management landed it an acquisition by CSC last year, and it’s since acquired the Austin-based social bookmarking and curation startup, Keepstream, a Capital Factory graduate.
 
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Delivering “front office tools for back office management,” Agile data management systems company Cyfeon “provides data optimization solutions to highly regulated enterprises, enabling compliance and finance departments to analyze, optimize, automate and control business processes.” The company, founded in 2011, empowers business users to interact with data in a way standard BI tools and analytic environments don’t. 
 
“There should be less reliance on IT departments for requirements such as report building and publishing, workflow automation, and general ad hoc queries on any data point,” Cyfeon stresses. 
 
Operating off of its own capital and primarily serving the cable/communications and financial sectors, Cyfeon’s areas of service include complaint management, control room automation, operational and financial compliance software, a compliance dashboard, and CyfPortal™, an enterprise data management portal.  
 
Have a tip for us or know of a company that deserves coverage? Email us via [email protected]
 

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