Molecula, a data virtualization startup out of Austin, announced Wednesday it closed on a $17.6 million Series A. The round was led by Drive Capital and brings the three-year-old company’s total funding raised to more than $23 million.
Built In last caught up with Molecula in 2019, when the company raised its $6 million seed round.
“When we last spoke, our enterprise offering was just getting off the ground,” Molecula’s CEO H.O. Maycotte told Built In via email.
Since then, the company has positioned itself as a “feature store,” which is a system that automatically extracts features, not data, from underlying data sources or data lakes, then stores them in a centralized place. It then automates the input, tracking and governance of data into machine learning models, advanced analytics and AI. The software also helps users perform complex analysis of data from disparate sources, while also reducing the risk of errors.
Maycotte says this kind of technology is “taking off in a huge way right now” because today’s businesses generate such massive quantities of data every day and store them in disparate sources. He also says that, before Molecula, this kind of technology had really only been available to “elite” tech companies like Netflix, Amazon and Facebook.
“We believe that Molecula’s feature store is going to allow any company in any industry of any size to be able to harness the power of data to achieve these impactful outcomes for consumers,” Maycotte explained, saying he is particularly excited about industries like healthcare, life sciences and financial services. “Humans and machines are about to partner in a big way to improve lives around the world, and we are committed to playing a major role in this transformation.”
Looking ahead, this fresh funding will be used to accelerate the launch of Molecula Cloud and scale the company’s marketing and sales efforts. The company also plans to triple its current headcount of 30 over the next year, with various open tech positions available now.
Maycotte says many of these hires will be at Molecula’s Austin headquarters and that he is looking forward to being one of the homegrown startups that moves the city forward.
“[I’m] excited to build something really big in Austin,” Maycotte said. “Everyone thinks we are becoming the next Silicon Valley and instead we are really just being invaded by Silicon Valley. I look forward to seeing companies born and raised here develop our ecosystem by doing extraordinary things.”
