Hammerspace raises $56.7 million to unlock business opportunities hidden in unstructured data
Hammerspace has raised $56.7 million in funding in its first round of institutional investment. The funding round, led by Prosperity7 Ventures, also includes Pier 88 Ventures, ARK Invest, and others.
Data has been widely considered to be among the world’s most valuable resources for some time. However, only 10% of enterprise data (structured data) can be easily processed and analyzed for the benefit of the business. The remaining 90% of data is unstructured, and much more difficult to use due to its sheer volume and the complexity of moving it from the storage silo where it was originally created to where it can be easily accessed and used.
The fact that most data is not organized in a pre-defined manner makes it difficult for enterprises to really understand what they have, but more importantly, to find and extract the value held within their digital assets.
Hammerspace’s Data Orchestration System makes unstructured data a global resource, so teams can access, activate and monetize their data without interrupting user access. It enables organizations to dynamically orchestrate their data across multiple vendors and operators, without creating unnecessary data silos.
“Hammerspace is uniquely positioned to accelerate the Next Data Cycle for enterprises through unstructured data orchestration,” said David Flynn, CEO of Hammerspace.
“The last data cycle focused on structured data rooted in business intelligence, but this data cycle, driven by compute, orchestration and applications, leverages unstructured data to drive product innovation and business opportunity with AI, machine learning and analytics. Hammerspace’s new funding will enable the company to help more customers unlock the value in unstructured data, create new revenue streams and drive operational efficiency,” Flynn continued.
With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies, the enterprises and public sector organizations that orchestrate these large amounts of unstructured data to algorithms will transform their businesses and ultimately win the race to reach the Next Data Cycle.
AI has rapidly made its way up the list of priorities for enterprises across all industries and geographies, and it’s not limited to just large enterprises: many mid-sized companies have made AI an essential part of their near- and long-term digital transformation efforts.
“It’s now axiomatic that data is powering the modern economy, and the demand for more data will only increase exponentially. Driven by AI advancements, robust tools now exist to analyze data and tease out actionable insights. However, file storage infrastructure has not kept pace with these advancements,” said Jonathan Tower, managing director at Prosperity7 Ventures.
“Hammerspace’s breakthrough technology enables businesses to efficiently access unstructured data, moving us closer to what the cloud was always intended to be – unified, seamless access to data, irrespective of geography, without silos, unacceptable latency or infrastructure limitations. Our investment in Hammerspace maps back to our commitment to supporting entrepreneurs who are developing next-generation technologies with the potential to create category-defining companies with global reach and scale,” Tower added.
“The industry has long been focused on the complexity of storing and accessing massive quantities of unstructured data,” said Senior Strategist Randy Kerns of Futurum Group.
“With the technologies of today and requirements for data, the urgent need in the latest data cycle is the orchestration of a data pipeline of unstructured data to analytics for AI and machine learning applications, enabling speed and agility for enterprises,” Kerns continued.
Unstructured data like scientific instruments, machine-generated data, video, images, audio files and office documents are creating the Next Data Cycle, defining how businesses create opportunities and activate innovations.
AI, scientific discovery, machine learning, extended reality, autonomy and corporate video are just some of the industries driving the creation and volume of unstructured data. International Data Corporation estimates that upwards of 90% of business information is likely to be formed of unstructured data by 2025.
The funding will support technology expansion and customer service, allowing Hammerspace to expand its team of skilled professionals dedicated to helping customers utilize unstructured data. An expanded Hammerspace team will support more customers with the full capability and transparency to activate, access and monetize their unstructured data.
While this is Hammerspace’s first round of institutional funding, its growth trajectory mirrors that of a relatively mature company. Working with existing customers like Blue Origin, The National Science Foundation and Royal Caribbean Group, Hammerspace is well-positioned to lead the unstructured data orchestration industry.
“The information of our world increasingly is decentralized. Companies, now more than ever, need to access and move unstructured data out of silos and across platforms, making it more useful and valuable,” said Cathie Wood, CEO, and CIO of ARK Invest.
“Our mission is to capitalize on technological convergence across markets and industries that is changing the way the world works. Hammerspace aligns with this mission, unlocking new innovations across the enterprise,” Wood added.
“Our target investments include established companies with effectual businesses that solve real pain points for businesses,” said Mitch McCullough, Partner at Pier 88 Ventures.
“Hammerspace’s technology is being utilized as a strategic business differentiator for many of the world’s largest organizations to derive data-driven insights, accelerate product development and create new business initiatives,” McCullough continued.
“Hammerspace’s unique, hardware-agnostic approach allowing corporations to manage ever-increasing data through the Global Data Environment sets it apart in the industry,” said Eric Howe, Sky Family Office.
“We are incredibly fortunate and happy to have been able to support Hammerspace over the past few years and through this capital raise, as it has continuously upgraded its offering and increased awareness of its capabilities, and we look forward to continuing our support as David Flynn and the team fulfill their potential of transforming how corporations create and manage their data,” Howe concluded.