CData’s $350M Series Round Is a Win for Big Data Connectivity

CData Software last week announced a massive $350 million round of funding that not only puts the data connectivity solutions on the map, but represented a win for big data, too.

Since it was spun out of /n Software in 2014, CData Software has been building the low-level connectors that keep data flowing among the various databases, applications, frameworks, and file systems that make our modern digital world possible.

If you needed an ADO.NET provider for Salesforce, an ELT tool for Snowflake, an ODBC reader for TensorFlow, or an AS2 document for a distributor in Omaha, you can look to CData to provide the bits that make the data move from one place to another.

Today, the Chapel Hill, North Carolina boasts a catalog of nearly 100 different data connectivity products, which all told support upwards of 300 different end points where data is stored (databases, file systems, etc.) or generated (ERP systems, e-commerce sites, etc.)

It’s not surprising that other software vendors also are CData customers. Oracle, Informatica, Altair, Salesforce, and Collibra are among the hundreds of software and services companies that have OEM deals with CData. There’s no point in re-inventing the wheel, or ODBC drivers, for that matter.

CData’s expertise building low-level data connectors resonates with customers developing their own solutions. All told, CData has about 7,000 customers, and according to a story in Reuters, it’s revenues are growing at a 40% annual rate, with an expectation that it will reach $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) by the end of 2024. The news organizations cited an unnamed source that said CData’s valuation was about $800 million.

So how does a software company building low-level infrastructure components land a $350 million investment from a New York private equity company named Warburg Pincus (with participation from Accel)? Isn’t GenAI supposed to be the hot new thing, not ODBC drivers?

Amit Sharma, CData co-founder and CEO

It turns out that to make AI work, you need a lot of data, and much of that data will flow through–you guessed it–the various drivers, providers, utilities, and other tools developed by CData.

“Since our founding, CData has continually raised the bar with our innovative solutions, enabling companies to seamlessly connect to data wherever it resides,” said CData CEO Amit Sharma, who co-founded CData with /n Software CEO Gent Hito. “Data access is at the core of any AI, ML, or advanced analytics strategy, but continues to be a challenging roadblock to innovation for many organizations today.”

CData’s is looking to its recent acquisition of Data Virtuality to help it expand into the fast-growing data virtualization market, which enables organizations gain fast, real-time access to virtual representation of a certain data set through a data-access layer, thereby eliminating some of the underlying technical complexity that comes from hard-wiring data integration connections.

According to Allied Market Research, the data virtualization market will grow from $3.2 billion in revenues in 2021 to driving $22.2 billion by 2031. Denodo, another data virtualization provider, brought in a $336 million round in September 2023.

Carter Griffin, the general partner of Updata Partners, which led the previous $140 million round Series B in 2021, commended CData on its growth.

“With a world-class product set of data access and connectivity solutions, we believe CData is well positioned for continued outperformance in collaboration with Warburg Pincus and Accel,” Griffin said. “We are pleased to welcome them as investors, and to continue our partnership with CData.”

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