Investment for Predictive Analytics Firm RapidMiner

In the US, predictive analytics specialist RapidMiner has closed a $16m round of equity financing, which it says it will use to fuel demand for its platform.

Boston, MA-based RapidMiner provides a platform using machine learning, data and text mining, to offer predictive analytics and business analytics. The firm was originally known as 'Rapid-I' and was founded by Ingo Mierswa, Simon Fischer and Ralf Klinkenberg in 2001 in the Artificial Intelligence Unit of the Technical University of Dortmund in Germany. In 2014 it acquired Hungarian big data analytics specialist Radoop (now called RapidMiner Radoop).

The new funding round has been led by new investor NGP, with participation from existing investors Ascent Venture Partners, Earlybird Venture Capital, Longworth Venture Partners and Open Ocean Capital. This adds to the $15m Series B round last year, led by Ascent Venture.

CEO and President Peter Lee (pictured with founder Ingo Mierswa's Labrador Marla) comments: 'Our platform streamlines the predictive analytics lifecycle and opens up advanced analytics to citizen data scientists. The new funding will allow us to leverage the strength of the product, further invest in sales and marketing, and greatly accelerate our momentum'.

Web site: www.rapidminer.com .