Big data analytics firm Platfora raises $38M to help enterprises make better decisions

The race is on to develop the best ways to help businesses make sense of big data.

One big data analytics company is Platfora, which lets enterprises tap into their mountains of data to unearth actionable intelligence. The company announced today that it has raised $38 million in a third round of funding led by Tenaya Capital. It has now raised a total of $65 million.

Companies that can help anyone, no matter their expertise, dive into their business intelligence are in hot demand at the moment. The big data market is expected to surpass $16 billion this year, according to IDC, and analytics will make up a large portion of that figure. Platfora’s competitors include other big data analytics companies like Workday and Teradata.

“Enterprises are awash in data but are struggling to gain useful insights,” Platfora CEO Ben Werther said in a statement. “While intuition is critical in business, business executives readily admit that they are still making too many gut decisions because they cannot adequately access or analyze all of their data to make better informed decisions. They cannot access or interpret these new large and heterogeneous big data sets fast enough.”

Platfora says the funding will be used to “invest aggressively” in new hires and technology. The company has its sights set on pushing businesses away from older business intelligence analytics technologies, which aren’t suited to breaking down huge amounts of data quickly.

The San Mateo, Calif.-based company also received funding from Citi Ventures, Cisco, Allegis Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others.