Data solutions startup Fivetran turns unicorn with $100 mn Series C fundraise

Oakland, California headquartered data analysis startup Fivetran has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round, co-led by venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst.  

Other than Menlo Park, California-based Andreessen Horowitz, returning investors in the round included investment firm CEAS Investments and private equity firm Matrix Partners, a statement said. 

The company will use the fresh capital to accelerate its global expansion and adoption in the enterprise market, and to expand its data connector platform, it said. 

Including the funds from this round, the company said it has raised a total of $163 million so far and is valued at $1.2 billion. Startups with valuations higher than $1 billion are typically referred to as unicorn startups.

In 2019, Fivetran raised $44 million in a Series B funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz with Matrix Partners and CEAS Investments. A year before that, the company raised $15 million in a Series A funding round, led by Matrix Partners, as per information on its website.

Founded in 2012 by George Fraser and Taylor Brown, Fivetran automates the integration and maintenance of heavy data sets for enterprises, data engineers and scientists, freeing up their time for more value-added work. 

Citing a report by Dimensional Research, Fivetran said that 68% of data analysts have profit-driving ideas but little time to implement them. Over 60% are said to be spending a large portion of their productive time to merely access the data.

As of February, Fivetran claims it has a customer acquisition rate of 75% at 1,100 companies and manages nearly 1.3 trillion rows of data, which increased from 500 billion in 2019. Its year-on-year revenue has grown 129%, the company said. 

Other than Oakland, Fivetran has offices in London, Munich and Bengaluru, and recently opened an office in Sydney.

“Bengaluru continues to be the largest development centre for the company. We are working on the core development of the Fivetran product, and are planning to double our team over the next 12 months,” Vikram Labhe, managing director of Fivetran India, said. Last year, the company, at the launch of the Bengaluru office, said it was planning to hire 100 employees in the country. 

Additionally, Trevor Oelschig, managing director of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based General Catalyst, will join the Fivetran board of directors.

Founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm, also known as a16z, is a stage agnostic investor focused on consumer, enterprise, healthcare, cryptocurrency and fintech spaces. It has $12 billion in assets under management across multiple funds and has investment in shared home rental platform Airbnb and media company Buzzfeed.

General Catalyst, which also invests in startups across all stages, has backed over 200 businesses. In India, it funded used car marketplace Spinny in March and invested in solar marketplace Mysun in 2016.

Matrix Partners India, which has a pronounced presence in the Indian startup space, recently invested in hotel chain Treebo, logistics startup Loadshare and travel management platform ITILITE Technologies.

CEAS Investments, which is a  single family office, typically invests in B2B technology companies, marketplaces and logistics sectors.