Analytics distribution platform Rupert Inc. said today it’s getting traction after closing on an $8 million seed funding round led by Cortical Ventures and IA Ventures.

Citi Ventures and Joule Ventures also participated, along with a host of executives from the enterprise data platform world, including Christopher Lynch, chief executive of AtScale Inc. and Jake Stein and Bob Moore, founders of Stitch Inc.

Rupert is the creator of an analytics distribution platform that helps companies to get their data-based insights to the people who urgently need to know about them. It’s all about helping organizations to maximize the return on their investment in data analytics and increase accountability in business decision making.

What Rupert does is connect analytics sources, such as business intelligence tools, with operational applications such as Salesforce, Jira and ad campaign managers, and then links these to common communications tools such as Slack, Teams and email. By doing this, teams can then deliver the most crucial insights derived from their data analytics platforms to business stakeholders through their preferred communications tool.

Notifications can be prompted by intelligent data triggers and accompanied by “action modules” that enable decision makers to act immediately on the most critical insights they receive. The idea is to capitalize on any business opportunity that’s surfaced by data analytics.

The big advantage of Rupert’s platform is that it can be tailored in such a way that every alert becomes relevant to the stakeholder involved. Using insight templates and smart filters, tailored alerts will only be sent when it matters, and when a decision needs to be made.

Rupert co-founder and CEO Ziv Wangenheim explained the problem his company is solving. Although most organizations have invested heavily in data analytics infrastructure, the insights that these projects generate remain reactive, sitting idle in various dashboards and waiting for someone to notice them. Such dashboards are designed for exploration, he said, meaning they’re not proactive enough to drive meaningful business actions.

“Our customers strive to be truly data-driven and need the ability to activate their insights and measure the business impact of their analytics,” Wangenheim said. “We built Rupert to help organizations close the loop from data pipelines to business impact. We help analytics teams claim their seat at the business table and move out of ‘support mode’ and into ‘proactive mode,’ by connecting their work directly to business KPIs and impact.”

It’s a problem that has been recognized by a number of prominent leaders in the data analytics market, including DataRobot Inc. and Cortical Ventures founder Jeremy Achin, who said he has seen first hand the challenge of surfacing timely and actionable insights for business users. “Rupert solved this massive problem with a novel approach as it learns the business users’ behavior and needs and caters them with tailored and timely actionable insights,” he said.

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. agreed that many companies still have trouble taking timely action based on data analytics. “The struggle is to get the analytics-based insights into the hands of the right people at the right time, so they can take action and help their enterprise thrive,” he said. “It’s good to see startups like Rupert having a go at solving this challenge. New concepts it introduces, like ROI on analytics assets, could change the game for some companies.”

Rupert said its platform has already proved its worth at early adopters such as AppsFlyer Ltd., GoodRx Holdings Inc. and Mux Inc., which the company claims have benefited from reduced customer acquisition costs and churn. Still, Rupert is only just getting started. It will use the funding from today’s round to invest in its platform, add the features and integrations its customers have been asking for, and scale up its go-to-market efforts.

Image: Rupert