Machine learning automation startup DataRobot Inc. has raised $250 million in new funding on a valuation of about $6 billion, according to a report today by Axios.

Altimeter Capital Management and Tiger Global are said to have led the Series G round. Other investors include T. Rowe Price, BlackRock, Silver Lake and New Enterprise Associates, according to the Axios report. DataRobot itself has yet to confirm either the new funding or the investors.

Founded in 2012, DataRobot offers a platform that uses artificial intelligence to automate and accelerate what it calls the “intelligence revolution.” The company’s platform enables users to build custom AI models without writing code with the company’s algorithms looking at the data the user is looking to process, finds a neural network suitable for the task and then automatically fine-tunes it to boost performance.

DataRobot claims that its platform simplifies development to the point that building a machine learning model becomes possible even for workers who don’t know how to code. That includes a simple drag-and-drop interface designed to accommodate users of varying technical backgrounds. Users upload the files they want to process, highlight elements of interest and then DataRobot uses an algorithm to match the data to any application to provide analytical capabilities.

In April, DataRobot signed a deal with Palantir Technologies Inc. “designed to create unique, agile and real-time solutions to help solve the most pressing demand forecasting problems.”

The new funding comes after DataRobot raised $270 million in new venture funding in November. The company first hit unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion during its Series D round of $100 million in October 2018 and then raised an additional $206 million in a Series E round in September 2019.

DataRobot has regularly been named on lists of companies that are candidates to go public in 2021. The question of whether DataRobot is going public is not if but when.

The company made a strategic hire in Damon Fletcher, the former Tableau chief financial officer, as its CFO in May, Tableau having been acquired by Salesforce Inc. in June 2019. Fletcher joined Dan Wright, appointed as chief executive officer in March, to give the “startup a fresh perspective and flexibility as it approaches a public offering,” the company said at the time.

Wright said in May that there was no timeline for the company to go public, but he did add that “we are doing all of the things to get the company ready to take that step.”

Including the new funding, DataRobot has raised $1.06 billion to date, according to data from Crunchbase.

Photo: DataRobot/Facebook