Hammerspace Inc., a data management startup that counts Blue Origin LLC among its customers, has raised $56 million in funding to support growth initiatives.

The investment was announced this morning. Prosperity7 Ventures led the round with participation from ARK Investment, Pier 88 Investment Partners and several other backers. 

“The last data cycle focused on structured data rooted in business intelligence, but the next data cycle, driven by compute, orchestration and applications, leverages unstructured data to drive product innovation and business opportunity with AI, machine learning and analytics,” said Chief Executive Officer David Flynn. “Hammerspace’s new funding will enable the company to help more customers unlock the value in unstructured data.”

In the enterprise, information is often scattered across multiple types of infrastructure. A company might keep one set of records in the cloud, another on on-premises hardware and a third at a backup facility. Administrators often have to manage each data environment using a separate set of software tools, which complicates day-to-day maintenance work.

Hammerspace says it has developed a better approach. The startup offers a software product, also called Hammerspace, that it describes as a data orchestration platform. The platform enables administrators to manage multiple cloud-based and on-premises data storage environments through a single pane of glass.

One of the flagship features is its so-called global file system. According to the startup, the feature reduces the need for companies to create copies of their business information.

There are often situations where an application running in one technology environment requires access to data stored in another. A revenue forecasting program running in Google Cloud, for example, might have to access sales logs from an on-premise storage array. The usual way to address that requirement is to create a copy of the on-premises sales logs and then move the copy to Google Cloud.

The more replicas of its data a company creates, the more it has to spend on storage infrastructure. Moreover, generating and then managing duplicate records requires a significant amount of manual work. That means administrators are left with less time for other tasks.

When a Hammerspace-powered application requires access to a record stored on remote infrastructure, administrators don’t have to create a copy of that file. Instead, the application can use Hammerspace to retrieve the original version of the file from the system where it’s kept. The result, according to the startup, is that fewer data copies are needed. 

Companies often move records between their internal storage environments. An organization might, for example, transfer low-priority files from a flash storage system to a more affordable disk array in a bid to reduce costs. Moving data is also necessary for a range of other use cases.

In many situations, transferring records to a new location makes them temporarily inaccessible to users and applications. Hammerspace says its platform can move data without any access disruptions. Moreover, it allows administrators to create automation workflows that can move data without manual input. 

Hammerspace also promises to ease several other data management tasks. According to the company, its platform can compress and deduplicate records to reduce the amount of space they require. For cybersecurity purposes, it offers a data encryption tool along with access controls that make it possible to regulate how applications use business information.

The funding round announced today is the company’s first institutional investment since launching in 2018. In the five years that preceded the round, the company built up a customer base that includes Jeff Bezos-backed aerospace company Blue Origin, the National Science Foundation and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

Hammerspace will use the new capital to enhance its platform’s feature set. Additionally, it will invest a portion of the funding in expanding its customer service team.

Image: Hammerspace