Araxid pulls in $12.5M to bring its database clean-up platform to other verticals

The company may sound like it was named after a bug, but its technology does something important.

In the age of Big Data, health care providers (and anybody else managing large databases) need powerful tools to make sure potentially duplicate patient identity data is properly stored and filed. McLean, Virginia-based Araxid Prime Inc. offers a SaaS-based service that unites the individual profiles in the large databases kept by health care companies and government agencies.

Now, the company has picked up $12.5 million in venture funding to expand the platform to other industries. The funding round is led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Columbia Capital.

Araxid’s identity resolution and matching technology software is used for resolving, linking, and privatizing disparate identities stored in one or more customer, partner, or employee databases, the company says.

In health care it’s used to unite patient profiles in a master patient index shared by multiple provider organizations. Studies of health care databases show that about 30 percent of personal data is either out of date, incorrectly entered, fraudulent — and yet this identity data is critical for doctors to access and share their patients’ medical records.

But Araxid’s identity matching platform could be used in other industries — like retail, which relies on accurate customer data to operate loyalty programs and better engage potential buyers.

Araxid and its investors believe that the market for identity resolution will grow to almost $1 billion in 2015.

“Identity resolution and matching are only the beginning,” said Araxid founder and CTO Brent Williams in a statement.

“Our current and new customers will benefit from our platform extensions like the Identity Exchange Service, which allows multiple organizations, such as hospitals, to interact on behalf of a single patient without ever needing to share personal data between them.