Infochimps is growing its marketplace, with a $1.2 million round of funding from DFJ Mercury.  This is the first round of funding for the dataset market, and its total amount raised, including angel funding, amounts to $1.6 million.  The money will go towards increasing its data supply, as well as making some key hires.

The data supply in question is one that revolvs around the buying, selling and sharing of lists, datasets and spreadsheets, aggregating and enabling the repurposing of information from the social web, amongst other areas.  So far, the Austin-based startup has expanded primarily around the types of datasets it’s incorporating into its system, while also enlarging its partnership base as a parallel function of this growth.  It leads back to Inforchimps’ API, which is the true point of interest when attracting partners and clients.

“DFJ Mercury was an obvious fit because of their experience in working with seed-stage Internet startups and innate ability to understand the value of democratized data. We’re confident our collective efforts will enhance Infochimps’ products and customer experience,” said Nick Ducoff, CEO and Co-Founder of Infochimps. “We’ve already seen amazing user traction and are looking forward to being able to expand our data repository and channel partnerships in the coming year.”

On area Infochimps has seen this traction is in the publishing industry, with a number of advertisers, marketers and media publishers utilizing its data for reports, infographics and the like.  Teaming with DFJ means that Infochimps will have an experienced resource behind the company, as it seeks other areas, like healthcare, for market penetration.  This is an interesting area to delve into, but it’s one that’s entrenched in the cloud, and will need access to repurposed data for a broadening array of reasons.

Heading in this direction means Infochimps will be introduced to a new line of regulatory methods pertaining to consumer data, like HIPA laws.  To this end, Infochimps will be using a good portion of this funding round towards building its engineering team, not necessarily its sales team.  While Infochimps will be changing its marketing messaging a bit in order to widen its appeal, the company is more interested in increasing its supply of data, and building out its partner relationship towards gaining more data.

For Infochimps, the best way to enter a market like healthcare is through its resources at DFJ, “because they’re already in this space,” Ducoff later said, mentioning their experience and understanding about data’s democratization.

Whichever area of growth Infochimps heads towards, this funding round reflects the growth the industry is taking, proving its necessity amongst several fields.  As data analysis tools follow businesses into the cloud, companies like Infochimps are taking the natural route of progression, with goals of focusing on the rights areas of team development for the long haul.