AtScale launches to connect Hadoop to analytics tools for business users

Startup AtScale is coming out of stealth mode today, revealing its plan to make data stored in the open source Hadoop file system accessible to people inside of companies, through popular business intelligence and data visualization software.

AtScale is working with a handful of companies, including Wargaming.net. Now, as the startup begins to talk about what it can do, it’s looking to grow.

“The reason why we will be big is we’re really a business-user interface for Hadoop, and there is no business-user interface for Hadoop today,” AtScale’s founder and chief executive Dave Mariani told VentureBeat in an interview.

This notion isn’t shocking. Companies have been increasingly checking out big data systems such as the Hadoop and the less mature Spark open source toolsets. (Hadoop distribution vendor Hortonworks went public in December.)

Some startups have built analytics tools designed for Hadoop or Spark — consider Datameer and Platfora, for instance — but deploying such tools means requiring end users to learn more. Business-intelligence software like Tableau and Qlik has become a staple at big companies, and AtScale is hoping to be the connector between such tools and Hadoop. Some business-intelligence software vendors have issued Hadoop connectors, but there might still be room for a startup like AtScale, too.

It helps that AtScale already has partnerships with the major Hadoop vendors, as well as Spark startup Databricks.

Before starting AtScale, Mariani worked as Klout’s vice president of engineering. Before that, he spent four years at Yahoo, one of the earliest users and developers of Hadoop.

AtScale started in 2013 and is based in San Mateo, California. Investors include Storm Ventures, XSeed Capital, and AME Cloud Ventures.