Manta Software Inc., a startup that helps companies fix errors in their business data, has closed a $35 million funding round to grow its headcount and accelerate product development.

Manta announced the funding round this morning. Forestay Capital led the investment with participation from a half-dozen other backers, including SAP SE’s SAP.io venture capital arm. Manta’s total outside funding now stands at $54 million.

In the enterprise, data analytics projects often draw on information from multiple sources. A retailer seeking to predict quarterly revenues, for example, might use sales records from its stores, e-commerce website and mobile apps to generate a revenue forecast. 

Manta offers a data lineage platform that can map out the different business records used in an analytics project and identify the system from which each record was retrieved. Manta could determine if a sales record stored in an on-premises database was originally kept in the public cloud. Moreover, the startup’s platform highlights any changes that may have been made to a dataset over time.

Manta says its platform lends itself to several use cases. Business intelligence teams can use the platform to ensure that the data they use in an analytics project is accurate. A company’s legal department, meanwhile, could check whether business data is processed by applications in a way that complies with regulations.

Another task Manta promises to simplify is artificial intelligence development. When building AI software, developers train their neural networks with a large amount of training data to increase their accuracy. Manta’s platform can be used to find and fix errors in training data.

Tasks such as mapping out how a dataset has changed over time usually require a significant amount of manual work. According to Manta, its platform streamlines the process with scanners automatically that track changes to a company’s business records. The startup says its platform reduces the amount of time necessary to fix data errors by up to 90%.

Manta’s platform is used by more than 100 organizations worldwide, including multiple Fortune 500 companies. The startup plans to use its newly announced funding round to grow its market presence. 

“The funding enables us to continue our strong momentum by expanding our global presence and product development to help customers overcome blind spots in their increasingly complex data pipelines,” stated Manta founder and Chief Executive Officer Tomas Kratky.

Manta currently has about 150 workers. The startup reportedly plans to increase its headcount to 220 workers by year’s end as part of its growth efforts. 

Image: Manta