Automation startup Parabola Labs Inc. today announced that it has closed a $24 million investment led by OpenView.

The investment, a Series B round, also included contributions from more than a half-dozen other backers. Flexport Inc. and Webflow Inc., two well-funded startups that compete in the logistics and web development markets, respectively, were among the participants. A number of angel investors joined as well.

In the enterprise, many business tasks require users to move data between applications. Such tasks are often done manually. In many cases, it’s possible to automate the manual work with custom software workflows, but creating such workflows was historically difficult because it required programming expertise.

Parabola says it has developed a simpler approach to the task. The startup offers a cloud platform, also called Parabola, that enables non-technical users to create automated data management workflows. Customers can interact with the platform through a drag and drop interface that doesn’t require writing any code.

One common task that requires moving data between systems is the creation of business intelligence reports. The data needed to create a report is often scattered across multiple systems. Users must collect the necessary records from each system, organize them into a consistent format and then move the information to a business intelligence tool for visualization.

For the first phase of the task, Parabola offers a set of pre-built integrations. They make it relatively simple to extract records from the various internal systems where they’re stored. Parabola says that its platform provides integrations for popular software-as-a-service applications, cloud databases and a range of other tools.

Once the data necessary for a project is collected, workers can use Parabola to prepare it for processing. Records sourced from different systems are often stored in different formats, which complicates analysis. Parabola can organize records in a single, consistent format as well as remove duplicate items and errors.

Users working on more complex projects can also perform computations on the data. Parabola can perform mathematical operations, such as determining the average price of the customer purchases in a dataset. Furthermore, it’s capable of enriching records with information from external sources.

Parabola offers the option to incorporate artificial intelligence models into data management workflows. Users can, for example, have an AI model organize customer records into different collections based on what items were purchased. Parabola’s neural networks can also extract key pieces of information from large files.

Creating business intelligence reports is not the only task that Parabola promises to ease. According to the startup, its platform also lends itself to a range of other use cases.

In the e-commerce segment, companies can use the platform to more easily manage inventory data. Online retailers often store information on merchandise availability in specialized inventory applications. Using Parabola, a company could create a workflow that automatically syncs data on product availability from its backend inventory application to its online store’s interface.

The logistics sector is another area where Parabola promises to reduce manual work. At delivery companies, the process of inputting data from shipping forms into backend systems of record is often done manually. Users can create workflows that automate the task.

“For the past few years, we’ve been working with incredible operators at category-defining companies who were drowning in manual work,” said founder and Chief Executive Officer Alex Yaseen. “Using Parabola, they’ve achieved tremendous value nearly overnight by automating the messy processes they thought were un-automatable.”

The company will use its newly announced funding round to grow its presence in the retail, consumer packaged goods and retail sectors. Parabola also plans to expand into new verticals. To support the effort, it will use a portion of the funding round to build new features for its platform. 

Image: Parabola