Remember the ill-fated Google Search Appliance, which promised to make finding corporate data as simple as searching the Internet?
Even though the product failed to inspire mainstream adoption, the fundamental issue remains that it’s still difficult to dig up important information locked up in spreadsheets, databases, and other documents scattered across your company.
Enter ThoughtSpot, a tech startup that just raised another $50 million to solve that problem. The Series C round led by General Catalyst Partners boosts the company’s total funding to just shy of $91 million. The valuation wasn’t disclosed.
The company’s business intelligence technology uses a search interface similar to what you would find in a traditional, consumer Internet search engine. The idea is that someone doesn’t need a technical degree to use it. The tool can be locked from a security perspective so that individuals are only able to retrieve data pertinent to their specific roles, locations, or security clearances.
One of ThoughtSpot’s biggest pitches is that it takes a matter of hours or days to set up, which is less time than many other competitive approaches, according to Singh. “The analytics teams of the future will no longer be report factories,” he said.
ThoughtSpot is also garnering attention because of who is behind the company. The team includes engineers and executives from Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), and Yahoo (YHOO).
Several of the senior executives, including the CEO Ajeet Singh, helped create Nutanix, a storage hardware startup that filed for its IPO last December but was put on hold because of the uncertain tech IPO market.
Get Data Sheet, Coins2Day’s daily technology newsletter.
ThoughtSpot’s customer list includes retailer Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) as well as several unnamed companies on the Coins2Day 100 list. Generally speaking, the company is part of the broader market for business intelligence and analytics—a market that drives almost $70 billion in spending annually on software and services.
The new funding will fund, among other things, ThoughtSpot’s ongoing international expansion. The company recently closed a “significant” six-figure deal in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region after opening its London office in January 2016.