Virtualitics raises $37M for AI-driven, 3D data exploration

California-based Virtualitics, a startup providing enterprises with an AI-driven platform for 3D data exploration, today announced $37 million in a series C round of funding. The company said it will use the capital to expand its footprint and add more capabilities to its offering to make it easier for users to analyze and understand complex, business-critical datasets.

The round has been led by Smith Point Capital with participation from Citi and advisory clients of The Hillman Company, among other investors. It takes the total capital raised by Virtualitics, which took off from Caltech and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in 2016, to $67 million. 

“The advanced AI and machine learning capabilities behind (Virtualitics’)…platform are completely revolutionizing the way organizations leverage their data,” said Keith Block, CEO and cofounder of Smith Point Capital. “Virtualitics enables deeper data access through an intuitive platform, opening up entirely new methods to explore complex datasets.”

Virtualitics’ answer to data woes

With an unprecedented surge in the number of internal systems and applications, enterprise data is exploding like never before. IDC estimates that the global datasphere will touch 163 zettabytes by 2025, and 60% of it will be enterprise data. This mountain of information will be nothing short of a nightmare for teams looking to drive valuable insights for business growth and competitive edge.

Usually, teams tackle data analytics with the help of business intelligence and visualization tools such as Power BI, Tableau, GoodData and DataBox. The solutions are quite good, but Virtualitics claims most of them are not suited for complex data analysis. Plus, the dashboards and reports they generate are not always easy to grasp and utilize.

To address these gaps, the company offers an Intelligent Exploration platform that allows users to run natural language queries on complex multi-dimensional datasets and generate network graph visualizations to understand them. The platform uses AI and ML models to analyze the data and quickly uncover hidden patterns, like potential upsell opportunities, enabling users to make informed decisions. 

But what makes Virtualitics unique is its ability to produce these visualizations in 3D, which ties together the data points in many ways and makes the interplay between dimensions clearer. Users can leverage these visuals to improve their own understanding of the data and eventually rope in other stakeholders to collaborate on the visuals in an immersive, shared space. This AR/VR experience makes insight consumption easier while allowing user to show everyone what they see in the data visualization — and the impact it could have on the business.

Virtualitics currently offers integrations with leading data platforms, such as Snowflake and Databricks, and counts defense and national security agencies among its customers. Over the last 12 months, it has acquired seven new customers across the Department of Defense and increased customer acquisition in the financial services and CPG markets, as well.

More capabilities in the pipeline

With this round of funding, Virtualitics will focus on innovating as well as growing its footprint and customer base.

The company said it will make ecosystem investments and make the data exploration platform more powerful with additional ML and data analytics capabilities. Further, it will add self-serve prescriptive workflows to make it easier for customers to analyze and understand complex data and transform their business.

“We knew we wanted a strategic relationship with our lead investor, not merely capital,” Michael Amori, CEO and cofounder of Virtualitics, said in a statement. “Smith Point’s operational expertise in enterprise software has been — and will continue to be — invaluable as we accelerate growth and innovation. This additional funding and strategic guidance will enable Virtualitics to realize our vision to empower organizations to solve complex, mission-critical problems with AI, data exploration and prescriptive business workflows.”