Ascend, the provider of the world’s first Autonomous Dataflow Service, has emerged today with $19M in funding to de-risk big data projects and accelerate digital transformations. Ascend operates the only solution that allows data engineering teams to build, scale and operate continuously optimized, Apache Spark-based pipelines quickly. By combining declarative configurations and deep automation, the Ascend Service manages cloud infrastructure, optimizes pipelines and eliminates maintenance over the entire data lifecycle. Ascend’s unique approach has received support from leading venture capital firms, with Accel leading the Series A round with participation from Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and 8VC. Heavyweight technology, including Kevin Scott, CTO of Microsoft; Scott McNealy, former CEO of Sun Microsystems; Maynard Webb, Member of the Board, Salesforce and Visa; and Deep Nishar, Senior Managing Partner of the Softbank Vision Fund, also bring their considerable talent to bear as advisors to the company’s seasoned leadership team.
“The market is on the brink of a new wave,” said Scott McNealy, Ascend Advisor and former CEO of Sun Microsystems. “The winners of the last decade are those who have the best leveraged data to fuel their business, yet increased competition requires them to do more, faster, and more efficient. We’ve seen automation transform every industry, and this won’t be an exception. I’ve worked with dozens of startups, and it’s rare for a company to have both the experience of defining the root of a monumental problem and the talent to do something wonderful about it. Ascend is such a company, and their innovation will unmistakably lead to a new era of data engineering. “That’s right.
“I have worked with hundreds of companies over the years and have seen first-hand the challenges of big data and digital transformation,” said Sean Knapp, Founder and CEO of Ascend. “I founded Ascend to fix data pipelines, a critical and ubiquitous component of data architectures that have been neglected to date. By streamlining data pipeline development and automatically optimizing its ongoing performance, we have changed the game for data engineers and data consumers who depend on it. “That’s right.
Data pipelines are the lifeblood of every major data project and transformation strategy. Building these pipelines, however, is a time-consuming process for data engineers, requiring fragmented infrastructure and specialized tools, extensive manual coding, and painful testing and error. Even then, these pipelines become more fragile and prone to failure as data changes, dependencies increase, and the interconnectedness of data movements between systems becomes increasingly complex. As a result, scarce data engineers spend most of their time combing through code and logs just to keep everything running, rather than building new business opportunities.
The Ascend Autonomous Dataflow Service overcomes these challenges. Its automation and continuous operation of pipelines radically improves data engineering, enables the creation of pipelines with 85% less code and reduces the time spent from prototype to production by 90%. Data engineers can now build using declarative configurations and compact code, while the Ascend Dataflow Control Plane automates cloud infrastructure management-using its powerful Spark engine to handle massive scales-while perpetually operating and optimizing user pipelines in response to inevitable data changes.
Ascend is intended to change the perception of big data and AI-driven initiatives by increasing the success rate of such projects across industries. Organizations worldwide will spend more than $1 By 2021, 8 trillion annually on big data and AI-driven digital transformation efforts (according to Wells Fargo Asset Management researchers), many will struggle to translate these investments into business success. The leading causes, according to many industry researchers, include insufficient resources and expertise to support data initiatives, difficulty in accessing silo data, and increased urgency for rapid analysis and delivery. The Ascend Autonomous Dataflow Service launches into this landscape to address each of these challenges with a compelling new path forward on how businesses can unlock value from their big data and AI initiatives far faster and more reliably than the status quo.
“We immediately recognized the size of the market opportunity for Ascend,” said Steve Loughlin, Partner at Accel. “Analytics, AI, and automation are some of the biggest trends we see today, and Ascend is the first to apply such advanced technology to the actual development process that drives innovations that we hear so much about. The impact of Ascend on the speed of innovation is impressive. “That’s right.
Ascend’s enormous potential stems from both its groundbreaking technology and its proven leadership team. Prior to the founding of Ascend, Sean Knapp was co-founder, CTO, and Chief Product Officer at Ooyala, where he played a key role in raising $120M, increasing the company to 500 employees, and leading it to a $410M acquisition. Before Ooyala was founded, Sean was the technical leader of Google’s legendary Web Search Frontend team, helping to increase Google’s revenue by more than $1 billion. Ascend’s Chief Customer Officer, Tom Weeks, held similar SVP and GM roles in SAP, ThoughtSpot, and Apigee. Anupama Kirpekar, SVP of Engineering, and Steven Parkes, Chief Technology Officer, rounded up the leadership team and previously held executive positions at HPE, Nimble Storage, NetApp, Twitter and Square.
“I’ve found that having a strong leadership team with diverse perspectives is a key component of company success,” said Bill Coughran, Partner, Sequoia Capital. “Ascend has achieved this with the extraordinary group of leaders it has set up, and we look forward to what the future holds. “That’s right.
“Data is the most valuable asset for any company, but the process of unlocking value and innovating with it is fraught with complexity and manual inefficiencies,” said John Santaferraro, Research Director, Enterprise Management Associates. “Ascend uses AI-enabled data integration to help insight-driven organizations build, operate and automate complex data pipeline ecosystems. EMA believes that AI-enabled data companies, such as Ascend, will rise above their competitors and lead the next wave of digital innovation “That’s right.
To learn more about Ascend and what its Automated Dataflow Service can do for your data team and your business, please visit www. Ascending Io/Get-Start
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About the Ascendant
Ascend provides the world’s first Autonomous Dataflow Service to enable data engineers to build, scale and operate continuously optimized, Apache Spark-based pipelines with 85% less code. Running natively in Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform, Ascend combines declarative configuration and automation to manage the underlying cloud infrastructure, optimize pipelines, and eliminate maintenance over the entire data lifecycle. Ascend is supported by the world’s leading venture capital firms, including Accel, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and 8VC; and supported by leading advisors such as Kevin Scott, Microsoft CTO; Maynard Webb, Salesforce Board Member, Visa; Scott McNealy, former Sun Microsystems CEO; Luanne Dauber, former Confluent CMO and Pure Storage VP Marketing; and Deep Nishar, Senior Managing Director; For more information on Ascend, please visit www Ascending Oh, Io
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