In 2017, after a couple of years developing his new startup, Data.world Inc., co-founder and CEO Brett Hurt received an unexpected email from someone at Goldman Sachs who was interested in the company's data platform.
The next year, Hurt and co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Matt Laessig were invited to the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, where they learned about the financial giant's growth equity group.
"I really, I really warmed up to the group and I thought, 'Wow, these guys could be fantastic at a certain stage, but they're a later-stage fund,'" Hurt said. "We kept in touch very, very closely over the years."
So when Data.world began contemplating new funding, one of Hurt's first calls was to Goldman Sachs. That was early January, and on April 5, Data.world announced it had raised a $50 million series C round led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Other investors included Prologis Ventures, Shasta Ventures, Vopak Ventures, Sandbox Insurtech Ventures, Paul Albright, Zachary Karabell and Scott Stephenson.
"We've talked with other growth firms, but the reality was that out of everybody we talked with, we really felt like they [Goldman Sachs] were going to add the most value to the company, just given the size of their global network," Hurt said.
As part of the funding round, Mike Reilly, a vice president in growth equity for Goldman Sachs, is joining Data.world's board.
"As data becomes the backbone of all businesses, Data.world has created a UI purpose-built for both technical and business users ensuring that enterprises capture maximum value and adoption from their data investments," Reilly said in a statement. "Given their positioning and product differentiation, we believe that they are best-positioned to capture extensive market share in the evolving, high-growth data catalog space.”
Data.world has now raised $132.3 million since its founding in 2015. It has 110 employees. With the new funding, Hurt said he hopes to double headcount within a year. But, with a lot of competition for talent in Austin and beyond, as well as Data.world's rigorous hiring methods, it could take longer.
"As our head of HR, Lisa Novak, always tells us, it's the most difficult hiring environment she's seen in her entire career, and she's a tech veteran," Hurt said.
The company declined to discuss revenue figures. Instead, Hurt pointed to Goldman's interest, its growing list of 48 patents, as well as its base of more than a million users, including large organizations that are interested in three- to five-year contracts.
"In this environment, only the best companies are getting funded at that level of investment," he said. "And our growth rate ... our projections are such that they've really passed the bar for someone as significant as Goldman Sachs."
Hurt said Data.world has received acquisition inquiries though they years, but he said that the startup is focused on its ambitious vision and hasn't given strong consideration to any offers. When asked about going public, he was cautiously optimistic.
"I think this company has such incredible potential that we could take it all the way through an IPO," he said. "So, yeah, hopefully we'll be able to do that."
For now, Data.world seems committed to its original mission of providing data cataloging capabilities and a knowledge graph, which provides visualization of complicated date, for paying businesses. Its customers have included The Associated Press, White Lion Interactive, Prologis, WPP and Penguin Random House UK.
It also provides a free platform for people and organizations across the world to collaborate by uploading databases, performing queries and unearthing new insights.
To that end, the startup is a B corporation, which requires it to commit to social and environmental goals and produce annual reports to show progress. Among those goals is to build a meaningful, collaborative and abundant data resource to maximize data’s societal problem-solving utility. It has also committed to advocate publicly for improving the adoption, usability and proliferation of open data.
"We're really just 100% focused on building a big business here for the long term that has a major impact on the world," Hurt said.
