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Venture Capital News: Cazena Grabs $20M Series B Funding

2015-07-23
WALTHAM, MA, Cazena today announced it has raised $20 million in Series B funding led by Formation 8, with participation from current investors Andreessen Horowitz and North Bridge Venture Partners.
Cazena announced its emergence from stealth mode by launching an enterprise Big Data-as-a-Service that can securely move and optimize big data processing in the cloud in just three clicks.

'Cloud is the next frontier for big data processing, yet complexity and security concerns hold most large enterprises back,' said Prat Moghe, founder and CEO of Cazena. 'Cazena's Big Data-as-a-Service is the first managed cloud service for big data processing that securely and seamlessly extends the enterprise datacenter with trusted cloud infrastructure and multiple, best-of-breed big data technologies. This assures the best price and performance for any big data workload, so enterprises can focus their efforts on delivering value, not managing technology.'

Cazena is launching three Big Data-as-a-Service solutions that address a broad range of analytic workloads: Data Lake-as-a-Service, Data Warehouse-as-a-Service and Sandbox-as-a-Service. Each solution can be deployed in three clicks, at a fraction of the cost of market alternatives.

Enterprises are actively exploring the use of cloud for big data processing. According to Forrester Research, Inc., 'Cloud services can deliver the fastest time-to-result and most focused agility...' As a result, the research firm advises clients, 'When it comes to implementing big data analytics, make cloud services a first-class option, not an exception.'

Another recent analyst study found that more than half (53 percent) of enterprises surveyed already use or plan to use public cloud resources for big data analytics. But respondents reported that security, data movement and complexity are top blockers for cloud adoption.

Cazena addresses these difficulties with a managed service platform, which includes:

Workload Intelligence: Provisions, optimizes and continually manages cloud infrastructure and best-of-breed data technologies (Hadoop, MPP SQL, Spark, etc.) to guarantee workload SLAs

End-to-end Automation: Moves data efficiently and runs analytic workloads in the cloud, with connectors for enterprise tools and data sources

Security and Privacy: Integrates an encrypted data cloud into the enterprise using strong security, governance and compliance controls

After two years of development, Cazena's Big Data-as-a-Service is now in beta with leading enterprises across several verticals.

'Cazena has assembled an all-star board and management team with decades of experience at Netezza, Endeca, Datastax, Unica and other market leaders. They bring a unique perspective to enterprise needs and challenges. Just as Netezza previously created a new category of data warehouse appliances, this team now has the opportunity to lead a new category around Big Data-as-a-Service. We are really excited to join forces with them in this journey,' said Shirish Sathaye, general partner at Formation 8.

'We are thrilled to be involved with the Cazena team since the company's inception. Data Processing-as-a-Service is poised to be the next frontier in the big data market and Cazena is delivering on this promise,' said Peter Levine, general partner, Andreessen Horowitz. 'Cazena's workload-driven approach can stitch together the right big data infrastructure based on the needs of each company and each job. This changes the game for enterprises by providing a means to harness rapid innovations in data processing,' added Steve Papa, board partner at Andreessen Horowitz.

At launch, Cazena is also announcing a platform partnership with Cloudera, the leader in enterprise analytic data management powered by Apache Hadoop, to power its enterprise-class data lake as a service solution. 'Cazena has developed a comprehensive managed service for enterprises that want to leverage the cloud for big data analytic workloads. Cloudera has set a new standard with our enterprise data hub offering and we are excited to partner with Cazena to further reduce complexity and time to value for our mutual customers,' said Tim Stevens, vice president, business and corporate development at Cloudera.

Other board members at Cazena include Jit Saxena, former chairman at Netezza, Jim Baum, former CEO at Netezza, and Ed Anderson, founder and managing general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners.

About Cazena

Cazena's mission is to radically simplify enterprise big data processing in the cloud, for faster business outcomes at a fraction of the cost. Cazena is the first enterprise Big Data-as-a-Service that can securely move and process big data in the cloud in just three clicks. Founded by former Netezza leaders, Cazena is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Formation 8 and North Bridge Venture Partners. For more information, visit cazena.com.
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