Intuit brings on ‘big data’ big guns with Level Up Analytics acquisition (exclusive)

Intuit just acquired Level Up Analytics, a consulting firm run by data scientists, who formerly worked at LinkedIn, Microsoft and other tech giants.

This is fifth talent acquisition of the year for Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks, TurboTax and other software for individuals and small businesses.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but we can tell you that 14 employees from Level Up Analytics will join Intuit’s team.

We reported earlier in the year that Intuit is planning to leverage data from a variety of sources to help small businesses make strategic business decisions and drive sales. The goal is to help the mom and pop store compete with Macy’s or Starbucks down the street.

With its 45 million global customers, Intuit is currently sitting on a “treasure trove of data,” Intuit chief executive Brad Smith told me in a recent interview. Intuit execs stress that the company won’t use your data without your permission — any customer information is aggregated and anonymized. “It’s the customers data, not ours” Smith often says.

The Level Up Analytics team is a rockstar group, so the acquisition could not have come cheap. Jonathan Goldman, a physicist and data scientist who invented ‘People You May Know; at LinkedIn, Lucian Lita, an early employee at Bluekai who led the analytics and big data team, and Anu Tewary, a former product manager at Microsoft TV, will join Mountain View-based Intuit.