The company, founded by ex-IBM employees, competes with platforms like DataDirect, Pure Storage, NetApp, and Vast Data. Despite the competition, Weka has over 300 clients, including AI startup Stability AI, 11 of the Fortune 50, and several undisclosed government agencies. CEO Liran Zvibel anticipates the company will achieve cash flow positivity by December 2024, citing favorable market conditions and proactive investor interest as reasons for the successful funding round.
Key takeaways:
- Weka, a platform for building data pipelines, has raised $140 million in a Series E funding round led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Nvidia, Norwest Venture Partners, Micron Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Hitachi Ventures and others.
- The company, now valued at $1.6 billion, was founded by Liran Zvibel, Maor Ben-Dayan and Omri Palmon, who previously built data storage startup XIV, acquired by IBM for $350 million in 2007.
- Weka's core offering is a parallel file system that can distribute data tasks across multiple locations, with additional services to support AI and machine learning, visual effects and high-performance compute workloads in various environments.
- Despite competition from platforms like DataDirect, Pure Storage, NetApp and Vast Data, Weka has over 300 brands as customers and expects to reach cash flow positivity by December 2024.