Platfora (www.platfora.com), the first in-memory business intelligence (BI) platform for Hadoop and Big Data, closed a $20M Series B round of funding led by Battery Ventures with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Sutter Hill Ventures. In-Q-Tel is also an investor in Platfora. Roger Lee, general partner at Battery Ventures, joins the Platfora Board of Directors. Platfora will use the investment to respond to strong interest in its product -- by expanding sales and marketing organizations in the US and globally, and continuing to build out its highly regarded product engineering and design team in San Mateo, CA.

Platfora is a fundamentally different kind of BI platform. It transforms raw data in Hadoop into scale-out, in-memory BI without the need for a traditional data warehouse. Business users are presented with powerful and easy-to-use web-based interface for exploring and analyzing big data. This is the first product of its kind to use HTML5 canvas technology, enabling collaborative data analysis across any device or platform.

"We couldn't be happier with the way the market has reacted to Platfora -- we've seen a burning interest in letting non-technical users harness the data in Hadoop for visual insight," said Ben Werther, CEO and founder, Platfora. "In order to address the interest in Platfora, we need to accelerate our go-to-market strategy and quickly grow our team. We're so honored to have the investors we do and we are focused on getting Platfora to wide availability in Q1 2013."

Platfora works by intelligently distilling data from Hadoop into a high performance data processing engine, making access to the data extremely fast. Platfora leverages the power of Hadoop to perform the heavy lifting, processing massive data sets into highly efficient, scale-out in-memory 'lenses,' which can seamlessly span dozens or hundreds of servers to utilize their collective memory and processing.

Platfora's biggest innovation lies in how the layers work together seamlessly. It automatically and immediately refines the in-memory data based on the questions being asked by end users, instead of requiring 6-12 month IT cycles and manual engineering as is the case today.

"We believe that Platfora represents the future of business analytics. With the emergence of Hadoop, legacy ETL, data warehouses, and BI solutions no longer make sense," said Mike Dauber, principal at Battery Ventures. "The early demand for Platfora speaks to the company's vision and understanding of how businesses need and want to access and analyze data. Ben and the rest of the Platfora team are building the next powerhouse data company and we are thrilled to be a part of it."

Platfora is hiring.

About Platfora, Inc.
Platfora changes the way businesses use data. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA, we put the power of big data in the hands of people who need it most, the end users. Platfora makes Hadoop amazing. Platfora is funded by Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures, and In-Q-Tel. For more details, visit www.platfora.com and follow us @platfora.

About Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz is a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that provides seed, venture and growth-stage funding to the best new technology companies. Founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz specializes in helping entrepreneurs become successful CEOs and build important and enduring companies. Its investing partners are Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, John O'Farrell, Scott Weiss, Jeff Jordan and Peter Levine, all widely recognized experts in the creation, scaling and operation of high growth technology companies. The firm has $2.7 billion under management. The firm's investments include Airbnb, Apptio, Box, Fab, Facebook, Foursquare, Github, Jawbone, Jumio, Lookout, Lytro, Pinterest, Twitter, and Udacity. The firm was established in June 2009 and is located in Menlo Park, California. www.a16z.com

About Battery Ventures
Since 1983, Battery has been investing in technology and innovation worldwide. The firm partners with entrepreneurs and management teams across technology sectors, geographies and stages of a company's life, from seed, start-up and expansion financing, to growth equity and buyouts. Battery has supported many breakthrough companies around the world, including seven companies who have IPO'd in the past fourteen months. Past portfolio companies include: Akamai Technologies (IPO), Angie's List (IPO), Anobit (acquired by Apple), Groupon (IPO), ITA Software (acquired by Google), Kashya (acquired by EMC), Netezza (acquired by IBM), VSS Monitoring (acquired by Danaher), and XtremIO (acquired by EMC). Its current portfolio includes emerging and more established firms such as Bazaarvoice (IPO), Calxeda, Continuuity, Cumulus Networks, Delphix, ExactTarget (IPO), Guidewire (IPO), Kontangent, Marketo, Nutanix, Opscode, and Zerto. Battery has offices in Boston, Silicon Valley and Israel. It has raised nearly $4B since inception, and is currently investing a $750M fund. For more information, visit www.battery.com. Follow us @batteryventures.

About Sutter Hill Ventures
Sutter Hill Ventures has financed technology-based start-ups and assisted entrepreneurs in building market-leading companies since 1962. Through decades of experience, the firm has developed strong industry networks, considerable operating and venture capital experience, and an understanding of the challenges that early-stage and high-growth companies face. The firm offers expertise in developing business strategy and partnerships, building management teams, and financing companies in both public and private markets.

Previous Sutter Hill Ventures portfolio companies include NVIDIA, NetApp, Data Domain, Alteon Networks, Youku, and others. Current companies in the SHV portfolio include Pure Storage, Sumo Logic, Platfora, Glassdoor, Ruckus Wireless, and others.