UPDATED 16:30 EDT / OCTOBER 14 2021

BIG DATA

Alation buys AI startup Lyngo Analytics to make data analytics more accessible

Following a June funding round that valued it at $1.2 billion valuation, Alation Inc. has acquired artificial intelligence startup Lyngo Analytics Inc. to enhance its data intelligence platform.

The acquisition was announced this morning. Alation didn’t share the financial terms. 

Alation’s data intelligence platform aims to solve a major bottleneck in enterprise analytics projects: the difficulty of finding information. A large organization’s business information is often scattered across dozens or even hundreds of systems of record that are managed by different business units and, increasingly, run on multiple cloud platforms. Locating the specific set of data assets needed for an analytics project can be a time-consuming task.

The Alation platform organizes all of a company’s data assets in one centralized catalog to help users more quickly find the records they require. For data governance teams, the platform provides features that help ensure the business information in an organization’s systems meets quality standards.

The acquisition of Lyngo Analytics will enable Alation to add a set of AI-powered query features to its platform. Data scientists usually retrieve information from systems of record such as databases by writing SQL queries. The process can take hours or days in some cases, which slows down business intelligence projects. Lyngo Analytics has developed a software tool that removes the need for SQL coding by enabling users to find information in their companies’ systems using simple natural-language queries.

The startup’s tool relies on AI algorithms to simplify data searches. When a user enters a natural-language query, the algorithms automatically translate the request into SQL code that can be run on the systems containing a company’s information.

Alation expects that Lyngo Analytics’ technology will provide two main benefits for customers. First, it will reduce the amount of time that data scientists have to spend writing SQL code so they can focus on other tasks. Second, providing the ability to explore a company’s data assets using natural-language queries will help Alation make its platform more accessible for nontechnical users.

Nontechnical business workers are becoming increasingly involved in their organizations’ data analytics and AI initiatives. The trend is partly driven by the growing number of software products that make it possible to create machine learning models and analyze business information without writing any code.

In practice, however, custom code is often still a requirement for data projects. While the tool that a worker leverages to build a machine learning model or run a business analysis may not require any programming expertise to use, the data assets needed for the project can in many cases only be retrieved by writing a SQL query. The natural-language query features that Alation is acquiring through the Lyngo Analytics deal will enable it to simplify business users’ work.

“When the business user can self-serve, and answer their own questions, that frees up a lot of time for data experts to pursue other, innovative projects,” said Alation Chief Product Officer Raj Gossain. “And for the experts who do know SQL, they will be able to perform even more complex analyses more quickly.”

The acquisition could potentially unlock new revenue growth opportunities for Alation. By offering a simpler user experience, Alation can enable enterprise customers to roll out its platform to a larger number of nontechnical employees, thus boosting product adoption.

The startup’s existing customers have already been expanding their use of its platform at a quick pace. “What we’ve seen in our existing accounts is that our expansions have gone up by over 100% year-over-year,” Alation co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Satyen Sangani (pictured) detailed in an April interview on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE (below).

Alation is backed by about $200 million in funding, most of which was raised through the June round that gave the startup its current $1.2 billion valuation. Alation boasts an impressive roster of investors: Snowflake Inc., Dell Technologies Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc. were among the participants in the startup’s June funding round.

Photo: SiliconANGLE

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