Some of the leading global growth investors are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a Chapel Hill company that's riding the exponential growth of artificial intelligence toward $100 million in revenue.
CData Software, which offers data connectivity solutions, on Tuesday announced it's raised $350 million in growth capital led by private equity firm Warburg Pincus of New York City, with participation from Accel — known for backing large companies like Meta (Nasdaq: META) and Slack.
Updata Partners, CData’s sole investor in its Series A and B funding rounds, remains a significant investor in the company.
This funding will enable CData to invest more in creating innovative data integration solutions for the more than 7,000 organizations it serves, according to a press release. Notable customers include Office Depot (Nasdaq: ODP), Holiday Inn (NYSE: IHG) and FedEx (NYSE: FDX).
Many data management providers and independent software vendors (ISVs) also embed the company's technology into their platforms — the likes of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) and Informatica (NYSE: INFA).
The new capital will help the software company invest in operations, product development and marketing strategies.
“Our goal is to sell data connectivity solutions to help organizations connect with data wherever it might be,” CData co-founder and CEO Amit Sharma told Triangle Business Journal. “And most modern organizations have data all over the place.”
The 10-year-old company is seeing demand for its services grow due to the rapid expansion of AI technologies.
“I think the next leg of AI is around the internal use of AI within organizations,” Sharma said. “And we play a big role in that because our connectors help you access data in a way that AI can consume very, very easily.”
The software company has been growing profitably by about 40 to 50 percent year-over-year, according to Sharma. By the end of this fiscal year, the company is projected to bring in close to $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
This year, CData acquired Data Virtuality, which helped the company expand into the data virtualization market.
With the new round of growth capital, Sharma said the company plans to hire roughly 100 new employees in the coming months. CData now has a headcount of around 350, with 60 to 70 percent local to North Carolina.
Sharma said his company caught the eye of investors because it services are gaining traction in the market.
“We focus on investments that offer differentiated and value-added solutions that are well-positioned to benefit from addressing shifting business needs,” Warburg Pincus Managing Director Cary Davis said in a press release. “CData is a great fit within our portfolio as a market leading provider of mission-critical data connectivity solutions, allowing organizations to connect, integrate, and manage data from various sources across on-premises and cloud environments.”
