Brussels-based data processing company Collibra has raised $100 million in investment from the American company CapitalG, the investment arm of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. The injection brings Collibra's value to over $1 billion, granting the company the mythical status of “unicorn” – much sought after but seldom seen.
Collibra, set up in 2008, is a spin-off from the Free University of Brussels (VUB). It describes its own function thus: “Premier organizations across the globe in industries including financial services, retail, healthcare, telco, manufacturing, technology, government, and others use Collibra to enable all data citizens – anyone in an organization who uses data to make business decisions or do their jobs – to find, understand, and trust the data they need to be truly data-driven enterprises.”
The company now has offices across Europe and in New York City, and employs around 400 people. Last year the company saw record earnings up 80% on 2017.
“Collibra is putting organizations back in control of their data, helping them comply with changing legislation, embrace emerging technologies and capture the information that will enable them to design services and solutions built for the future,” said Derek Zanutto of CapitalG in a statement. “We look forward to partnering with Collibra and marrying Google and Alphabet’s machine learning and AI expertise with Collibra’s leadership in data collaboration, workflow management and risk management.”
Felix Van de Maele, a co-founder of Collibra and CEO now, also issued a statement: “Now more than ever, we live in an economy where the most innovative companies are fuelled by data. It has become our most valuable asset,” said Felix Van de Maele, CEO and co-founder of Collibra. “This investment is a testament to Collibra’s leadership and our ability to help customers transform their market proposition through data-driven insight. With this latest round, we are well-positioned to leverage our heritage in understanding data to help our customers utilize the most cutting-edge innovation to power their digital transformation journeys.”
Alan Hope
The Brussels Times
