DIY data startup RapidMiner digs up $5M

Data scientists might always be the most efficient source of business intelligence, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the enterprise can’t dabble.

German startup RapidMiner (formerly known as Rapid-I) makes an eponymous analytics tool with a graphical, drag-and-drop interface that enables other departments to participate in predictive analytics. It integrates with about 60 data sources to help non-programmers analyze customer retention, social media sentiment, direct marketing efforts, and expected equipment maintenance.

The rebranded company just raised $5 million from Earlybird Venture Capital and Open Ocean to develop new analytics products and expand its sales and marketing operations. It also plans to set up a U.S. headquarters in Boston, Mass., where about a third of its 40-person workforce already resides.

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“With three million product downloads, RapidMiner has rapidly become one of the leaders in the predictive analytics space,” said Monty Widenius, MySQL founder and partner at Open Ocean Capital, in a statement. “We plan to leverage our experience in building MySQL, and the MySQL community, to help the RapidMiner team advance its technology and grow its user community around the world.”

Founded in 2006, RapidMiner has reached 35,000 production deployments and 200,000 users. It has more than 400 paying customers, including PayPal, Pepsi, eBay, and Volkswagen. Usama Fayyad, former chief data officer at Yahoo, just joined RapidMiner’s board.

RapidMiner competes with vendors like Alpine Data Labs and Actian, which also aim to democratize big data inside the enterprise.