16 Nov 2023
ICON has advised VaultSpeed, the automated data transformation company, on its $15.9 million (€ 15.1 million) in Series A funding. This funding round is led by Octopus Ventures, one of the largest and most active venture capital investors in the UK and Europe, with additional participation from the current lead investor Fortino Capital, PMV, and BNP Paribas Fortis Private Equity.
Following two consecutive years of triple-digit revenue growth, VaultSpeed intends to use the proceeds to expand its strong international presence with a particular focus on the UK and US markets and to further develop the platform automation capabilities.
As more and more enterprise companies move their data to the cloud for faster analytics and data-driven decision-making, data teams are faced with the problem that without automation, it becomes nearly impossible to transform and integrate multi-source data on time, without compromising on quality or quantity. According to market research by Gartner, Worldwide Public Cloud End-User Spending will grow 17.5% to $725 billion by next year. Spending on cloud infrastructure represents the fastest growing market segment.
Launched in Belgium four years ago with seed investment from the Cronos Group and Fortino Capital, VaultSpeed has redesigned data transformation. It not only handles data complexity through transformation but also consolidates the data into a comprehensive target data model, allowing data engineers to customize it according to their requirements in a matter of days and weeks as compared to traditional methods.
VaultSpeed is already offering its automation solutions to global enterprises, particularly in finance, healthcare, and utilities sectors. The company has established strategic partnerships with Snowflake, Microsoft, and Databricks, and has developed a network of over 30 service partners to serve clients on a global scale.
“All data teams are looking at increasing productivity and agility. We automate every step of their cloud data warehouse or lakehouse. From setup to maintenance and beyond,” said Piet De Windt, CEO and co-founder of VaultSpeed. “We’re excited to team up with Octopus Ventures, they resonated with our ambition from the start to revolutionize the cloud data market. With this funding we aim to triple our revenue by 2025.”
Paul Davidson, Partner from Octopus Ventures: “Data warehouse automation is rapidly replacing conventional approaches to data warehouse creation which are becoming ineffective and obsolete. VaultSpeed have developed a no-code automation platform that we consider to be a best-in-class solution to address modern data engineering challenges, which often requires an ability to execute business intelligence or analytics projects in a matter of hours rather than months.
We are delighted to partner with Piet and Dirk who have executed well on their vision for their solution to date and are confident that we can help them."
Marcel van der Heijden, Partner at Fortino Capital: “We’re delighted to continue to support Piet De Windt and Dirk Vermeiren and their team on their mission to push the boundaries of automation. The company has navigated well throughout the pandemic and post-pandemic period and has seen continued traction because they do fundamentally change the productivity of data teams. A must in the current AI era.”
“VaultSpeed is at the forefront and will use the proceeds to maintain its competitive advantage. We have only just begun to tap into the vast potential of automation in the cloud data warehouse and lakehouse market. We are, for example, exploring how AI and abstraction can further revolutionize automation and target data model delivery."
stated Dirk Vermeiren, CTO and Co-Founder of VaultSpeed. “
Roald Borré, Group Manager Equity Investments at PMV: “Automation of data-migration towards cloud environments is a key catalyst towards digitalization of companies. PMV is thrilled to support VaultSpeed in its rapid growth towards a leadership role in the data space. Combining the talents of the team and extra financial means, is a perfect recipe to further success.”
Ben Kolada and Eddie Harding at ICON Corporate Finance, who advised on the transaction, added: “We’re immensely proud to have advised Piet and the VaultSpeed team on this transformational funding round. The high-speed expansion VaultSpeed is experiencing is proof that the advanced automation capabilities of VaultSpeed’s data transformation platform are just what the market is asking for. Furthermore, Octopus Ventures’ deep sector experience and extensive international network makes them the perfect investor to partner with VaultSpeed for the company’s next growth stage.”