Come rain or shine, AI is the future: Why we’ve reinvested in Dataiku (again)

Every December, the Dawn team reflects on the year gone by and makes a set of predictions for the next. There is no doubt that 2022 brought difficult and often painful challenges, but I am nevertheless hopeful for 2023. Why am I optimistic? Because the fundamentals of technological progress did not disappear when the markets turned, and huge opportunity remains.

On January 1st, none of us will wake up thinking: ‘I’d like to swap out my laptop for some pen and paper’. Nor are businesses going to say: ‘Forget about cloud, let’s go back to buying servers’, or ‘I think our decisions can be a little less data-driven’. In fact the opposite is true. We will all be more cost-conscious than we were 12 months ago, but we will be equally intent on seeking ways to become more productive, more creative and more empowered.

This is where AI comes in. Come rain or shine, AI is the future — and it feels as if it has finally arrived in the world of business.

McKinsey has found that 50% of companies globally tried to use AI in some way in 2022, up from 20% in 2017. This is just the beginning. Foundation models — systems such as GPT3 — are making headlines. These are amazing tools; GPT3 can tell dad jokes and write some basic marketing copy. But for AI to work in the corporate context, you need appropriate enterprise-grade, responsible AI tooling that focuses on collaboration and democratisation. Here, Dataiku is leading the way, redefining how companies deliver on their data strategy.

The company, launched in Paris in 2013, is helping to build AI into the daily operations of businesses of all sizes around the world. It operates across industries and offers an end-to-end, easy to use and truly collaborative platform. In the world of data there are several exciting infrastructure players, but today Dataiku is the only stand-out application layer around. It is also cost-friendly; a business only needs to buy one tool to ensure its data projects will deliver, and that’s Dataiku.

For more and more firms, the company is becoming truly transformational, and it is now en route to being one of the largest global software vendors born in Europe.

Since we first supported Florian, Clément and their team through their $101m Series C funding round, the company has scaled to partner with over 500 customers, including 150 of the world’s largest enterprises. Today it is headquartered in New York and employs over 1,000 people in offices spanning 18 countries, with a world-class management team to match its ambition. This year Dataiku had already surpassed $150m in annual recurring revenue — a sales milestone for any scaling software company.

In boom markets, we too often forgot that building businesses requires years of work. Back when Florian and I first met in a small, buzzing Paris office in 2016, it was already clear that his company had the potential to become a software heavyweight. But Dataiku’s stellar results were no “overnight success” — they were achieved through a decade of hard grind. The Dataiku team has proven that it has the ability to persist, innovate, deliver, and grow in a multitude of circumstances. Dataiku is primed to thrive in 2023, and that is why the company has just closed a $200 million Series F led by Wellington Management with participation from existing investors including Dawn, at a $3.7bn valuation.

We have only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of business focus on data and AI, and Dataiku will use the additional fuel to deliver on the serious opportunity that lies ahead. In the coming years, AI is set to span ever more corporate functions and really deliver for the bottom line. Now is the time to build Dataiku into a generational AI company. The writing was always on the wall, and I could not be more thrilled to see Florian, Clément and the team fulfilling their mission.

And, if you would like to join Dataiku in their exciting journey ahead, check out their open positions here.