{"id":1903,"date":"2016-11-30T12:57:40","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T12:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/eric-schmidt-backed-data-science-startup-civis-analytics-raises-22m.html"},"modified":"2016-11-30T12:57:40","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T12:57:40","slug":"eric-schmidt-backed-data-science-startup-civis-analytics-raises-22m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/eric-schmidt-backed-data-science-startup-civis-analytics-raises-22m.html","title":{"rendered":"Eric Schmidt-backed data science startup Civis Analytics raises $22M"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Civis Analytics<\/a>, a company founded by the chief analytics officer<\/a> of Barack Obama\u2019s 2012 re-election campaign, has raised $22 million in Series A funding.<\/p>\n

Founder and CEO Dan Wagner told me that after the election, he discovered that many organizations \u2014 whether they were in politics, government or business \u2014 were dealing with problems similar to the ones he faced during the campaign.<\/p>\n

Specifically, he said Civis customers are struggling to \u201coperationalize data intelligence.\u201d In other words, businesses are trying to figure out, \u201cHow do I establish truth and prediction and then how do I connect that truth to recommended action?\u201d So Civis has created \u201ca one-stop shop\u201d for businesses to understand their data, use that data to make predictions and get recommendations on what steps to take next.<\/p>\n

In addition, Wagner said there \u201cjust aren\u2019t enough data scientists out in the world.\u201d And while Civis began as more of a consulting business, it\u2019s now \u201ctaking the knowledge of like 100 data scientists and wrapping that up a suite of technology,\u201d which gives data scientists tools to allow a smaller team to be much more efficient.<\/p>\n

Civis Analytics customers span the public and private sectors, and they include Airbnb, the 2020 US Census (in partnership with Young Rubicam) and Verizon (which owns TechCrunch).<\/p>\n

To be clear, Wagner said the company isn\u2019t trying to solve every single data science problem out there. Instead it wants to help customers \u201creally understand people and how do I predict the right type of attitudes and behaviors.\u201d For businesses, that means understanding customers and potential customers; for government agencies, that means understanding constituents; and for political campaigns, that means understanding voters.<\/p>\n

\"Civis<\/a><\/p>\n

Civis Analytics previously raised seed funding from Alphabet\u2019s executive chairman Eric Schmidt<\/a>, but has mostly bootstrapped for the past three and a half years. (Wagner recalled Schmidt telling him, \u201cYou need to suffer through this.\u201d)<\/p>\n

So why raise money now? Wagner said that while he was able to use revenue to grow the team to 135 employees, it was time to start investing and expanding more aggressively.<\/p>\n

The new funding was led by Drive Capital with participation from Schmidt, Verizon Ventures and ad holding company WPP. Drive\u2019s Chris Olsen is joining Civis\u2019 board of directors.<\/p>\n

The company wasn\u2019t involved in this year\u2019s presidential campaign, but given Wagner\u2019s background, I couldn\u2019t help asking him about the election. He admitted that he has \u201cdeep regrets\u201d about the results, but he said that Donald Trump\u2019s surprising Electoral College victory<\/a> shouldn\u2019t change the role of data science in campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump he did some interesting things with technology that were heterodox and unanticipated,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cIdeally, that doesn\u2019t change the nature of what campaigns do [with] analytics, but it probably changes the way that campaigns should be run.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that it\u2019s not the analysis side but the measurement side that\u2019s \u201cbroken and \u2026 has to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPhone polling as an instrument of political measurement is probably on its way out,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s on its last legs and everybody knew it. We have been transitioning internally for both commercial and public customers to multi-mode [polling] and online panels. People need to adapt to new circumstances, and they need to adapt very, very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Featured Image: Collison Conf\/Flickr<\/a> UNDER A CC BY 2.0<\/a> LICENSE<\/small><\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunchIt\/~3\/B_umqnSlLck\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Civis Analytics, a company founded by the chief analytics officer of Barack Obama\u2019s 2012 re-election campaign, has raised $22 million in Series A funding. Founder and CEO Dan Wagner told <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-1903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enterprise-software","tag-enterprise"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t