RapidMiner Gains $5 Million To Better Serve PayPal, Pepsi And Other Major Clients

Advanced analytics provider RapidMiner has received million in a Series A led by Earlybird Venture Capital and Open Ocean Capital. Formerly known as Rapid-I, the company made the decision to officially change its title to RapidMiner after releasing a successful product with the same name. "I think the Research In Motion and BlackBerry BBRY comparison is spot on," Ingo Mierswa, founder and CEO of RapidMiner, told Benzinga. Millions of consumers know the BlackBerry name, but very few were aware that the device was actually created by Research In Motion. Now the company's name matches its lead product. "Making a company name change like this is a huge effort," said Mierswa. While RapidMiner's name change should assist with the firm's marketability, the $5 million investment could allow the company to achieve its overall goals. Related: New Startup LOCK8 Wants To Make Bike Theft A Thing Of The Past "We could see immediately that RapidMiner is disruptive to the existing order in predictive analytics," Jason Whitmire, a partner at Earlybird Venture Capital, told Benzinga via e-mail. "It's simple and is used the world over by businesses to rapidly uncover trends, segments or relations from Big Data. By allowing experts in different technology and operational domains to quickly share context and knowledge, RapidMiner is having a major impact." Whitmire said that the predictive/advanced analytics market is starting to segment based on skill level, complexity and the overall richness and sophistication of the technology. After looking at other, similar firms, Earlybird concluded that RapidMiner was the only one that "puts the person who has to solve a predictive analytics problem right in the middle of a very broad value proposition." "In addition to its impressive global traction, we found that RapidMiner's team is building a deep pipeline of ideas and innovations to bring their users," Whitmire added. RapidMiner has already acquired a number of high-profile customers, including Pepsi PEP, PayPal EBAY, Siemens SI, Volkswagen VLKAY and Telenor TELNY. Now the firm wants to help additional firms mine big data. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report. Louis Bedigian is the Senior Tech Analyst and Features Writer of Benzinga. You can reach him at louis(at)benzingapro(dot)com. Follow him @LouisBedigianBZ