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On October 4, 2012, RainStor announced a $12 million Series C to expand its database business, while Trifacta emerged from stealth with $4.3 million to develop visual tools for preparing data. The announcements captured two different needs in the growing big-data software market: storing and querying large datasets, and turning raw data into a useful form for analysis.
What did RainStor announce?
RainStor announced a $12 million Series C co-led by Credit Suisse and Rogers Venture Partners. Existing investors Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, Storm Ventures, and The Dow Chemical Company also participated. The company said it would use the funding to expand engineering, sales, and marketing. TechCrunch’s October 4, 2012 report covered the round and RainStor’s product focus.
RainStor sold relational database technology intended to store and query large volumes of information more compactly. It had also released a version that ran natively on Apache Hadoop, allowing users to query data with SQL while continuing to use Hadoop for other workloads. These were product capabilities and vendor claims, not independent performance findings. In particular, TechCrunch reported that RainStor claimed its compression could reduce storage requirements by as much as 40-fold; that figure should be read as the company’s claim, not a verified benchmark.
In a company announcement reproduced by NewswireToday on October 4, 2012, CEO John Bantleman described the investment as validation from customers in financial services and communications, two sectors RainStor said it had served for years.
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What did Trifacta launch?
Trifacta came out of stealth on the same day with $4.3 million from Accel Partners’ Big Data Fund. VentureBeat described its planned platform as software that used visualization to help data analysts work with datasets. VentureBeat’s launch coverage quoted co-founder and CEO Joe Hellerstein: “There is a lot of talk about engines and algorithms for unlocking value in data. But real value comes from the people who drive the analysis.”
The product concept, as described by TechCrunch’s October 4, 2012 report, was to let users explore a dataset or sample visually, receive suggested ways to transform it, and preview what those changes would do. The software was intended to generate SQL queries or MapReduce code to run on the underlying data platform. Trifacta aimed to serve both less technical business users and data scientists; its founding team included Hellerstein, Jeffrey Heer, and Sean Kandel. These details describe the announced direction, not evidence of eventual performance or adoption.
Accel’s portfolio page identifies the initial 2012 investment as a Series A and records Trifacta as acquired by Alteryx.
How were RainStor and Trifacta different?
The companies addressed separate stages of working with large datasets. RainStor focused on storing and querying data; Trifacta focused on inspecting and reshaping it so people could analyze it.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors| Dimension | RainStor | Trifacta |
|---|---|---|
| Workflow role | Compact storage, archiving, and querying of large datasets. | Visual exploration, cleaning, and transformation before analysis. |
| Intended users | Enterprise customers, including financial-services and communications organizations cited in the company announcement. | Data analysts, business users, and data scientists. |
| Technology approach | Relational database technology using compression; a Hadoop-native version supported SQL access. | Visual previews and suggested transformations, with generated SQL or MapReduce code for an underlying platform. |
| October 4, 2012 funding | $12 million Series C, co-led by Credit Suisse and Rogers Venture Partners. | $4.3 million from Accel Partners’ Big Data Fund; Accel classifies the 2012 investment as a Series A. |
What became of the companies?
The announcements are historical, not current product news. Teradata announced its acquisition of RainStor in 2014; see Teradata’s acquisition announcement. Accel’s portfolio page records Trifacta as acquired by Alteryx. These records establish the acquisitions, but do not establish whether either company’s 2012 products remain available, supported, or compatible with current systems.
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