A rising variety of companies are embracing knowledge fashions — summary fashions that manage components of knowledge and standardize how they relate to 1 one other. However as the info analytics and AI increase drives organizations to count on extra of knowledge fashions, lots of the outdated paradigms are proving tough to handle — and exceptionally brittle.
At the very least, that’s what engineers and entrepreneurs Artyom Keydunov and Pavel Tiunov noticed of their work. Whereas at Starsbot, a knowledge analytics startup the pair co-founded in 2016, Keydunov and Tiunov typically consulted with organizations struggling to get their “data house,” so to talk, so as.
Dice started as an open supply undertaking in 2019 providing what Keydunov describes as a “universal semantic layer” for organizational knowledge that may feed into databases, enterprise intelligence (BI) instruments, and even AI-powered chatbots. Now, 5 years later, Keydunov and Tiunov have a veritable enterprise on their palms, having launched a subscription-based service constructed on Dice — Dice Cloud — that provides automated workflows and enterprise-focused governance and deployment tooling.
“There’s no shortage of data,” Keydunov informed TechCrunch. “And the demand for data continues to grow among employees, partners and customers, who are motivated by the idea that data-driven decisions lead to improved operational efficiency, enhanced customer satisfaction and competitive advantage. Technologies like AI, machine learning, the internet of things and blockchain are reshaping the data landscape and revolutionizing how organizations collect, process, and derive value from data. It’s not only humans who need data; now machines need data too.”
Information modeling challenges apart, surveys recommend that comparatively few orgs are attaining even base-level success deriving worth from their knowledge. A 2022 Gartner ballot of knowledge analytics leaders discovered that fewer than half consider their groups are efficient in offering worth to their employers. That’s even though, in keeping with the identical ballot, firms are spending a median of over $5 million on knowledge administration, governance and analytics initiatives.
So what to do? For Keydunov and Tiunov, the reply was to try to create a platform that might function a unified supply of reality for all an organization’s knowledge and metrics.
“Cube Cloud is a universal semantic layer that is an independent, yet interoperable, part of the modern data stack that sits between your data sources and data consumers,” Keydunov stated. “The universal semantic layer allows every data endpoint — whether it is BI tools, embedded analytics, or AI agents and chatbots — to work with the same semantics and underlying data.”
Corporations use Dice Cloud to construct that semantic layer and join it to their varied apps and utilities, using role-based entry controls, knowledge caching, single sign-on, and scaled-up infrastructure as they require it. Enterprise-tier prospects get entry to consultants who can prepare their knowledge engineers to work with Dice Cloud and supply help on-demand, in addition to construct the preliminary Dice Cloud occasion — both on Dice-owned servers or on-premesis — custom-made to the enterprise.
“Cube Cloud automatically adjusts queries and injects the appropriate security context — user or role details — to make sure that only the appropriate users have access,” provides Keydunov. “And through the performance insights in Cube, customers can find redundant queries or other opportunities for caching and pre-aggregating query results, reducing the amount of compute that is required.”
Dice competes with AtScale, which additionally presents a semantic layer for knowledge modeling and serving, and Dtb Labs’ just lately acquired Rework. However Dice seems to be holding its personal, with a buyer base that spans over 200 Fortune 1000 manufacturers and a consumer base approaching 5 million individuals, the agency says.
Keydunov says that the open supply Dice undertaking has surpassed 10 million downloads, whereas Dice Cloud is now put in on round 90,000 servers. Bookings are up 3x from 2023 to 2024, whereas the common deal dimension has grown 3x.
It’s this success that attracted new funding to the enterprise, little question. San Francisco-based Dice this week introduced it raised $25 million in funding from backers together with Databricks Ventures, Decibel, Bain Capital Ventures, Eniac Ventures and 645 Ventures. Bringing the 40-employee startup’s whole raised to $48 million, the brand new money can be put towards supporting Dice’s go-to-market and advertising and marketing actions and broadening Dice Cloud’s capabilities, Keydunov stated.
“Our investors encouraged us to raise equity in order to support the expansion of our go-to-market team so that we could take advantage of the huge surge in demand for AI and the semantic layer,” Keydunov continued. “We have seen enterprise businesses become more measured and careful in their evaluations, which can slow down the sales process a bit — but that gives us more time to prove our value over the competition. We are well-capitalized with our new round of funding and have plenty of runway to grow the company to its next milestone.”
