大数据服务平台Cazena获2000万美元B轮融资Cazena，一家帮助企业处理数据的新平台，今天宣布已获2000万美元B轮融资，融资由Formation 8领投。其他的投资方包括Andreessen Horowitz和North Bridge Venture Partners，他们也参与了去年十月Cazena800万美元的A轮融资。
Cazena由部分Netezza的前任员工创办，Prat Moghe是公司的领头人。2010年Netezza被IBM收购时，他担任数据监察部门总经理，收购后，任职高级副总裁，负责产品、战略和市场营销。
在IBM干了一段时间后，Moghe觉得是时候用新的视角来解决Netezza曾遭遇的一些问题了。“在看到企业都是如何同全新的大数据堆栈（如Hadoop，一种分布式系统基础架构）挣扎较劲的情况下，我们开始思考下一个十年数据处理的前景，”他说道。“每一个企业，尤其是中大型企业，都在积极寻找着能提高进程灵敏度的云方法，但是现有平台的复杂性和安全问题是很大的障碍。”
Cazena 的目标是极大简化商业中的大数据进程处理。Moghe设想，最终的理想状态是，使用Cazena时只需点三下，就能设置好数据处理工作（当然现阶段还有一些问题需要解决）。
这项服务通过自动搜寻到，处理设定数据组的分析技术方案，从而解决掉处理的复杂性。接下来，它会替客户自动的规定、优化和管理工作流程，无论是Hadoop、Spark、MPP还是SQL9（如Amazon Redshift）类型的结构。
根据你的工作量和其他标准，如价格或是你想要获得结果的速度，Cazena会为你提供适当的基础结构，然后全程关注进度。“最终，数据即服务成为一个新的分类，我们希望能助企业一臂之力，让他们用好云计算。”
Cazena花费了约两年的时间，才公开他们的新产品。但Moghe说，公司尚在和一小部分大型企业合作，进行β测试，现在还没有达到完全开放服务的阶段。
当准备就绪的时候，Cazena会使用相对特别的定价计划。Moghe说，计划是针对服务，包括所有的云计算成本、支持和SLA开销，收取单一费用。他认为，目前针对云处理的收费系统，如gigabyte、note，对企业而言结果都太难预测。
公司的这一轮融资资金，将会用于技术开发、销售推广和合作伙伴建设。
Cazena Raises $20M Series B For Its Enterprise Big Data-As-A-Service Platform
Cazena, a new platform that wants to make it easier for enterprises to process their data, today announced that it has raised a $20 million Series B round led by Formation 8. Other participants include Andreessen Horowitz and North Bridge Venture Partners, who both also participated in the company’s $8 million series A round last October.
Cazena was founded by a number of former Netezza employees and is now led by Prat Moghe, who was Netezza’s general manager for data compliance before its acquisition by IBM in 2010. He then became the senior vice president for strategy, product and marketing at Netezza under IBM’s ownership.
After a few years at IBM, Moghe decided that it was time to look at some of the problems Netezza was trying to solve from a fresh perspective. “We started thinking about the next decade of data processing and how enterprises are struggling with the new big data stacks like Hadoop,” he told us. “Every enterprise — and particular the medium to large enterprises — they were actively looking at the cloud to speed up the agility of processing. But they were being held back by the complexity and security issues [of the existing platforms].”
Cazena aims to greatly simplify big data processing for businesses. Ideally, it should only take three clicks to set up a data processing job with Cazena, Moghe believes (though in reality, it’s still a bit more involved right now). The service strips away the complexities by trying to automatically figure out what technology to use to analyze a given set of data. It then automatically provisions, optimizes and manages that workflow for its customers, no matter whether it’s a Hadoop, Spark or MPP SQL (think Amazon Redshift) job.
Depending on your workload and other criteria like price or how fast you need the results, Cazena will provision the right infrastructure for you and then take care of the processing. “Ultimately, data as a service is a new category and we want to help big enterprises get into the cloud,” Moghe said.
It took the Cazena about two years to get to this point where it’s openly talking about the new product. But while Moghe told me that the company is already running some beta tests with a small number of large companies, Cazena isn’t quite ready to open up its service to all yet.
Once it does launch, though, it will do so with a relatively unusual pricing plan. Moghe tells me that the plan is to charge a single fee for the service that will include all of the cloud costs, support and an SLA. He argues that current cloud processing systems that charge by gigabyte or node are too unpredictable for enterprises.
The new funding the company announced today will go toward building out the company’s technology, sales force and partnerships.
来源：tc
投融资
2015年07月23日
投融资
客户体验管理平台Medallia获1.5亿美元融资
提供客户体验管理云服务（SaaS）的Medallia刚刚获得了红杉资本的1.5亿美元融资，估值已达12.5亿美元。
Medallia是一家提供客户体验管理软件即服务（SaaS）的初创企业，成立于2001年，总部位于Palo Alto，现有员工700人。
客户关系管理（CRM）与客户体验管理（CEM）都是与客户打交道的平台，所不同的是前者主要负责前期跟踪和管理销售交互，而后者则是在售后对客户数据进行分析以提供更好的服务。
Medallia的SaaS CEM平台可以从web（网上评论）、社交媒体、移动以及联络中心收集客户反馈，对收集到的数据进行实时分析并采取行动，从而改善客户体验、提高客户忠诚度、留存率并推动收入增长。与竞争对手相比，Medallia 的Insights服务是其差异化优势，该洞察服务可以在客户遇到问题时提供实时分析。
Medallia的服务主要针对6个行业，其中包括零售、金融服务、酒店、电信、汽车以及B2B提供商。Verizon、Macy’s、Sephora、SAP、Honeywell、富国银行、索尼、Four Seasons、Sodexo及梅赛德斯等均是它的客户。
跟前几轮一样，这次的融资仍由红杉资本领投（尽管成立很早，但Medallia直到2011年才开始第一轮融资），所得融资将用于新功能开发并进行市场扩张。此轮过后，Medallia的总融资额已达2.55亿美元，下一步应该就是IPO了。
Medallia Raises $150 Million in Equity Financing to Continue Rapid Growth
PALO ALTO, Calif., July 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Medallia®, a leading SaaS provider of Customer Experience Management (CEM) solutions, today announced that it has raised $150 million in growth equity capital in a round led by Sequoia Capital. This new investment follows a period of rapid growth, during which Medallia welcomed a number of additional large enterprise customers to its client base, substantially grew revenue, launched partnerships with several prominent professional services firms and expanded its global operating footprint.
"Consumers are increasingly making purchase decisions based on customer experience data like online reviews and social media feedback rather than pre-existing brand recognition. To deliver consistently great experiences, leading companies are shifting from merely collecting customer feedback to engaging with consumers and embedding their feedback directly into operations," said Borge Hald, CEO and co-founder of Medallia. "Our recent round of funding is an important step in our journey to build customer experience into the DNA of the world's companies and change the way they operate."
Medallia first raised venture funding in late 2011, and has now raised a total of $255 million. The company plans to use this most recent investment in a two-pronged plan to further enhance its operations, with a focus on:
Developing additional new product capabilities and tools; and
Expanding its operating footprint in major markets, building on a global team that has doubled in size to over 700 employees in the past 18 months.
"Medallia is helping the world's top brands increase loyalty, grow their businesses, and deliver unforgettable customer experiences," said Douglas Leone, Medallia board member and Sequoia Capital partner. "Their rocketing growth will only continue as more companies recognize that in today's age, effectively managing the customer experience is no longer a choice. It's a win-or-lose necessity."
This funding builds on a number of milestones during recent months. Medallia has:
Allied with leading global system integrators and customer experience experts, including J.D. Power and Appirio, that have launched implementation and program management practices for the Medallia platform;
Welcomed companies, including SAP, Mazda and DIRECTV, to its client base, joining such customer experience leaders as Four Seasons and Zurich Insurance Group;
Added seasoned industry veterans to its board of directors, including LinkedIn and Palo Alto Networks board member and audit committee chair Stan Meresman, and former Netflix CMO Leslie Kilgore; and
Appointed proven financial leader and former Polycom CFO Mike Kourey as CFO.
About Medallia
Medallia® is the Customer Experience Management company that is trusted by hundreds of the world's leading brands. Medallia's Software-as-a-Service application enables companies to capture customer feedback everywhere the customer is (including web, social, mobile, and contact center channels), understand it in real time, and deliver insights and action everywhere—from the C-suite to the frontline—to improve their performance. Founded in 2001, Medallia has offices in Silicon Valley, New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, Sydney and Buenos Aires. Learn more at www.Medallia.com.
来源：prnewswire
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130314/SF76927LOGO
投融资
2015年07月22日
投融资
澳大利亚线上顾问平台Expert360获得310万A轮融资
导语：这笔融资将会用于扩大其顾问支持团队，并且增加更多企业级服务。HRTechChina也报道过专注中小企业咨询的 “收费版知乎”的“答赏”，“答赏”是通过垂直领域的专业问答涉足在线咨询，为企业经营者提供解决问题方案的，致力打造最有价值的商业分享和人脉社区。国外方面，连接企业家和高级顾问和行业专家的Clarity也与之相类似。
澳大利亚Expert360是一家提供高端顾问服务的平台，近日该公司获得了410万澳元（约合310万美元）的A轮融资，领投方是Frontier Ventures风投公司。
这笔融资将会用于扩大其顾问支持团队，在研究、数据、以及其他知识产品方面提供服务。此外据Expert360联合创始人兼首席运营官Emily Yue透露，该融资还会用于Expert360增加更多企业级服务，一些从大企业退休的高管将会加入到Expert360的顾问人才团队，客户还能获得专属项目经理的支持。
据了解，目前全球顾问行业的市值已经达到了3500亿美元。
参与本轮投资的还有澳大利亚本土科技基金Rampersand，一批机构投资人，现有股东，和高净值投资人（比如Macquarie银行前任总经理Allan Moss AO）。本轮投资之后，Frontier Ventures风投创始人Dmitry Alimov将会加入到Expert360公司董事会。
Alimov说道，“线上顾问服务具有颠覆全球顾问行业的潜力，而Expert360则是此领域里的佼佼者。他们突破了传统的咨询顾问方法，利用科技的力量，全球互联，以及个体性专长，为客户提供优秀的解决方案。Expert360团队给我们留下了深刻印象，他们的执行力非常快，产品质量和发展轨迹也很不错。我们非常高兴能够重新回到线上顾问服务行业。我们的目标，就是帮助该公司的联合创始人和他们的团队，把这项事业推向新的。”
Expert360公司成立于2013年，他们在全世界拥有超过4500名专业顾问，企业客户可以轻松地与旗下顾问联系，获得帮助。根据该公司官方信息，目前Expert360总部设在悉尼，在澳大利亚和东南亚拥有15名全职员工。
Bridget Loudon是该公司首席执行官兼联合创始人，她说道，“我们的公司愿景非常简单，就是希望利用科技的力量，帮助客户或是客户的项目得到优质的顾问服务，让他们能够随时随地的获得顾问价值。我们非常高兴，因为有一批非常棒的投资人帮助我们将Expert360推上一个新台阶。我们的领投方，Frontier Ventures风投，在全球市场有着丰富且有价值的专业经验，我们非常期待与他们合作。”
Frontier Ventures是一家专门在全球新兴市场从事互联网领域投资的风投公司，他们主要关注东南亚和俄罗斯的消费互联网服务。该风投的投资组合包括亚洲餐厅预订平台Chope，俄罗斯线上视频公司ivi.ru，以及俄罗斯和独联体的线上企业服务平台profi.ru。本次对Expert360的投资，是他们第十笔线上服务平台类投资，也是他们在亚太地区的第二笔投资。
Frontier Ventures leads US$3.1M Series A round in Australia’s Expert360
Frontier Ventures has led an oversubscribed AU$4.1 million (US$3.1 million) round raised by Australian consulting marketplace Expert360.
The newly raised capital will see the company expand its support for consultants through access to research, data and other IP. The money will also be used to expand its enterprise services offerings so that executives in larger organisations can get instant access to a pool of consulting talent and support from a dedicated project manager, shared Expert360’s Co-founder and COO Emily Yue.
The global consulting industry is worth US$350 billion.
Co-investors in the round include Australian technology fund rampersand, institutional investors, existing shareholders, and high net worth individuals such as former Macquarie Bank MD Allan Moss AO.
Frontier Ventures Founder Dmitry Alimov will join the company’s Board of Directors.
Alimov said, “Expert360 is a leading marketplace for online consulting services with potential to disrupt a massive global industry. It breaks apart traditional consulting methodology by using the power of technology, global connectivity and individual expertise to provide superior client solutions. We are very impressed by the company’s team, its speed of execution, product quality and outstanding growth trajectory. We know online service marketplaces and we’re excited to back this one. Our goal is to help Bridget, Emily (Co-founders) and the Expert360 team take this business to a new level.”
Launched in 2013, Expert360 connects consultants with companies and has more than 4,500 independent consultants available from around the world. From an initial small team in Sydney, it now has 15 full-time employees across Australia and Southeast Asia, said an official release.
Bridget Loudon, CEO and Co-founder of Expert360 said, “Our vision is simple: it’s about harnessing technology to connect clients and their projects with great consultants, anywhere, anytime and in a way that delivers outstanding value for both parties. We’re extremely excited to have a great set of investors on board to help us take Expert360 to the next level. Our lead investor, Frontier Ventures, brings a wealth of global marketplace expertise that will be very valuable. We look forward to working with them.”
Frontier Ventures is a venture fund focussed on Internet investments in global emerging markets, with a main focus on consumer Internet services in Southeast Asia and Russia. Its portfolio includes Asia’s restaurant reservation platform Chope, Russia’s online video company ivi.ru and online marketplace business in Russia and CIS profi.ru. This investment marks the 10th online marketplace in Frontier Ventures’ portfolio and the fund’s second deal in the APAC region.
来自：e27
投融资
2015年07月21日
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HackerRank近日获得七百五十万美元投资[caption id="attachment_8176" align="alignnone" width="720"] Tech Hiring Matchmaker HackerRank Draws $7.5M From Global HR Firm[/caption]
HackerRank近日获得七百五十万美元投资
程序员招聘竞赛平台HackerRank近日宣布从日本人力资源巨头Recruit获得七百五十万美元投资。HackerRank让应聘者在线完成真实项目的编程挑战，从而来为企业筛选出能力优秀、符合招聘需求的技术人员。HackerRank的联合创始人兼首席执行官Vivek Ravisankar表示, Recruit成为股东将有助于HackerRank扩展在亚太地区的业务。Recruit可以成为HackerRank在亚太地区企业和应聘者的入口。
去年11月有报道国内有一家Hackerrank 的平台：
HackerRank模式的中国尝试者：oxcoder让程序猿在线完成项目挑战来帮企业做招聘笔试
http://www.hrtechchina.com/archives/4383
原文来自：
http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2015/07/14/tech-hiring-matchmaker-hackerrank-draws-7-5m-from-global-hr-firm/
HackerRank, which hosts online competitions that help programmers flaunt their skills to potential employers like Amazon and Quora, said today it has landed a $7.5 million investment from the funding arm of Japan-based human resources giant Recruit.
The new alliance with Recruit will help Palo Alto, CA-based HackerRank scale up its business in the Asia Pacific region, CEO and co-founder Vivek Ravisankar says. Recruit could be HackerRank’s gateway to both employers and job candidates in that part of the world, he says.
HackerRank counts as customers more than a thousand employers such as Walmart, Bloomberg, and Morgan Stanley, which pay for access to programmers who score high in HackerRank’s online coding challenges, Ravisankar says. All have made at least one hire facilitated by HackerRank, he says. Recruit itself is not a client—yet.
“I think we’ll get them soon,” Ravisankar (pictured above) says.
Ravisankar and his co-founder Harishankaran Karunanidhi, who started the company in 2012, want to change the way tech workers and employers find each other. Under traditional staff search processes, tech applicants send their resumes into the “black hole” of company hiring departments, while recruiters spend hours sifting through resumes to find good prospects, Ravisankar says. Employers may then spend weeks doing interviews to try to gauge the applicants’ actual technical abilities.
HackerRank’s competitions are designed to speed up that process, and open opportunities to people regardless of their gender, race, location, or the prestige of their university degrees. Hackers can log in to the site to improve their skills, compete in challenges, and gain rankings across a range of specific areas such as algorithms, machine learning, and streamlining code. For employers looking to hire skilled new tech team members, it’s kind of like consulting a Moneyball analysis of programmers, Ravisankar says.
“They’re getting to talk to high-quality candidates from the start,” Ravisankar says. HackerRank has screened more than a million developers over the last couple of years, he says. More than 150,000 active programmers used the site over the past month.
In addition to the chance of getting a job offer, hackers can win cash prizes or tech toys such as GoPro cameras, drones, and laptops by performing well in the contests.
HackerRank has built a reputation as “the go-to community for tech talent analysis,” HR Technology Fund president Chihiro Ueda said in a statement about the Recruit fund’s investment in the startup. “As the demand for technology talent continues to outstrip supply, HackerRank offers an efficient way for HR professionals to evaluate talent beyond traditional means.’’
The Recruit fund’s investment brings HackerRank’s total fundraising to $17 million. The company’s earlier financial backing came from Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, and Battery Ventures, among other investors. Ravisankar says HackerRank’s competitors include companies such as San Francisco-based recruiting software company Gild. Gild compiles profiles of working professionals from dozens of sites, and helps employers find those who best match their needs.
HackerRank’s clients include small to medium-sized businesses as well as larger enterprises, Ravisankar says. The company charges fees of $5,000 to $10,000 a year, per user, depending on the extra features clients want to add. These include CodePair, a skills-testing tool employers can use during the interview process. HackerRank also enables companies to set up their own hacker challenges on their websites’ career landing pages.
Ravisankar says he expects HackerRank’s revenues to reach “the double-digits of millions of dollars” in the next three to four months. The company may double its current staff size of 120 within a year, he says.
HackerRank is one of a growing number of online forums where programmers can demonstrate their computer science skills, outside the academic credentialing system of degrees from accredited colleges and universities. For example, Utah-based online learning company Pluralsight offers skills tests through its divisionSmarterer, and hackers can showcase their work on tech projects throughGitHub.
HackerRank is also making inroads into the academic system. Professors at 74 colleges are using HackerRank’s challenge infrastructure at no charge to set programming tasks for their students, rather than posting the assignments via e-mail, downloading each student’s work, and computing the rankings themselves. Once the classroom service becomes better known, HackerRank will market it as a product to colleges and universities, Ravisankar says.
But HackerRank will remain an avenue of opportunity for people who have never earned a degree, says Ravisankar. The company’s core mission is to create a meritocratic route to tech employment, he says. Fees will never be charged to hackers entering one of the company’s coding contests, he says.
“They will never pay,” Ravisankar says. “It will always be free forever.”
【印度】客户服务联络中心解决方案提供商Ameyo获得500万美元A轮融资
导语：这家总部位于印度班加罗尔的公司这笔融资拓展美国市场业务，并开发新产品。
Ameyo, 是一家总部位于印度班加罗尔的公司，他们提供多渠道客户服务和联络中心解决方案。近日，该公司宣布获得500万美元A轮融资，投资方是一家名叫Forum Synergies的私募公司。
该公司将使用该笔融资扩展美国市场业务，同时在联络中心和销售加速技术领域内开发新产品。
Drishti是Ameyo的母公司，随着这笔融资的完成，Forum Synergies私募公司联合创始人、兼首席执行官、总经理Samir Inamdar将会加入到Drishti公司董事会。
“呼叫联络中心正在进行快速转型，它不仅对企业核心业务营销巨大，同时也在向云端发展。如今，全世界的呼叫中心市场价值已经超过了30亿。电话销售团队和内部销售团队都在采用全新的销售加速技术，该领域预计规模可达到120亿美元，而且增长速度惊人。Ameyo公司获得的这笔投资，就是希望能够在这些市场领域里能够挖掘更多机会，”Bishal Kumar说道，他是Drishti公司首席执行官。
Drishti公司成立于2003年，创始人包括Bishal Kumar, Sachin Bhatia，以及Nayan Jain，他们都是印度理工大学古瓦哈蒂分校的同学。依靠其子公司Ameyo，Drishti公司为全球超过四十个国家的1500多名客户提供服务，这些客户中不乏业界巨头，比如 Ola Cabs, Jabong, Bankbazaar, TinyOwl, Mphasis, WNS, 约旦Ahli银行, 以及美国大通银行。
此外，该公司开发的TexoCC呼叫服务产品，该产品主要定位中等规模的呼叫联络中心和内部销售团队。
Contact centre solutions firm Ameyo grabs US$5M Series A
Ameyo, a Bangalore-based company providing omnichannel customer and contact centre solutions, has raised around US$5 million in Series A funding from city-based private equity firm, Forum Synergies.
The funds will be used to expand to the US, as well as to add new products in the contact centre and sales acceleration technology space.
As part of the funding, Samir Inamdar, Co-founder, MD and CEO of Forum Synergies, will join the Board of Drishti, parent of Ameyo.
“Contact Centres are undergoing rapid transformation both in terms of impact to the core business and movement to cloud. This represents a US$3 billion global opportunity. Telesales and inside sales teams are adapting sales acceleration technology which is a US$12 billion opportunity and growing very fast. This fresh funding will catalyse our larger participation in both of these fantastic market opportunities,” said Bishal Kumar, CEO of Drishti.
Drishti was founded in 2003 by Bishal Kumar, Sachin Bhatia and Nayan Jain — all classmates from IIT Guwahati. With Ameyo, Drishti serves over 1,500 customers in over 40 countries, including Ola Cabs, Jabong, Bankbazaar, TinyOwl, Mphasis, WNS, Jordan Ahli Bank, and Chase Bank.
The firm also offers TexoCC targetting mid-sized contact centres and inside sales teams.
来源：e27
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