data.world, a new company created to “make it fast and easy to find and use data to solve problems,” has officially launched today. Led by Bazaarvoice founder and former CEO Brett Hurt and three former HomeAway executives, data.world is building what it calls “the most meaningful, collaborative, and abundant data resource in the world by dismantling the barriers between people and data.”
According to data.world, people who work with data can quickly and easily discover, prepare, and share it, as well as effectively collaborate in real time to solve important problems.
The idea behind the startup is to help people who work with data solve problems faster by quickly linking them to “relevant data” from a wide variety of sources. By linking datasets together using Semantic Web technology, the data.world platform identifies and adds knowledge about the concepts within data, allowing people and machines to work with data without needing to learn everything about it beforehand, the company said.
The company also introduced several ideas from social networking to enhance data science. These include user profiles and feeds to aid data discovery, comments and annotations to provide context, and ratings and social proof to promote quality.
data.world also announced that it has secured $14 million in a Series A round led by Shasta Ventures. Additional investors include leading venture capital firms Capital Factory, Chicago Ventures, Floodgate, FYRFLY Venture Partners, Homebrew, Lead Edge Capital, LiveOak Venture Partners, and Rothenberg Ventures.
More than two dozen angel investors also participated in the round, including: Clayton Christopher, Founder of CAVU Ventures, Sweet Leaf Tea, and Deep Eddy Vodka; Herb Simon, chairman emeritus of Simon Property Group and owner of the Indiana Pacers; John Mackey, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Whole Foods; Matt O’Hayer, founder and CEO of Vital Farms; Josh Kopelman, Co-founder of First Round Capital; Philip Berber, co-founder of A Glimmer of Hope and founder and CEO of Enable Impact; and Ralph Mack, CEO of Mack Capital.
“By making data widely available and easy to use and share, data.world has the potential to drive major commercial breakthroughs. data.world stands to transform any industry that relies on answering complex problems as quickly and completely as possible,” Said Pat Ryan Jr., Chairman, Chicago Ventures.
