Redbird, a New York-based startup that announced it is looking to raise $7.6 million in seed funding, said PT Hard-pressed data engineers. The funding will help the company make further improvements to its data analytics operating system – and support business growth with revenues up ninefold from early 2021.
Why do data engineers need to be saved? Erin Tavgak, co-founder and CEO of Redbird, explains that the problem is that they are chronically under-resourced and painfully overworked. “We live in a world where businesses say every decision must be informed and the amount of data is growing exponentially,” says Tavgac. But most businesses are experiencing the same frustration.
One issue is that automation hasn’t caught up—by some estimates, more than $1 trillion is spent on manual data-related tasks each year, and Tavgak believes two-thirds of that work should be automated. The second problem is fragmentation – in an effort to extract maximum value from data, businesses are routinely buying four or five different data tools together.
But the biggest issue of all is the task faced by data engineers in terms of their limited number. “In the businesses we work with, it’s very common to have a ratio of 100 business people for every data engineer,” Tavgak said. “It’s a recipe for disaster.”
The combined effect of these problems is that employees in functions such as marketing, sales, finance, and more need support that data engineering teams have no opportunity to provide as a current issue. The promise of data and analytics is smarter, faster decision-making – if it takes weeks or months to complete a specific data project request.
The Redbird solution is an operating system that provides a user-friendly interface that does not require the use of specialized engineering expertise, not only a wide range of automated data services – extensive collection, wrangling, modeling and reporting. The idea is that analysts in business functions should be able to manage many of their own data projects – all they have to do is point and click – freeing up data engineers to support complex or technical tasks.
It’s a solution that targets both parties, says Tavgak. “Most people in the business know exactly what they want from a data project and can use Redbird to get it without being at the mercy of their under-resourced data engineering teams,” he says. “In the same way, the data team will have the time and space to collaborate and create — to develop the data solutions the business needs.”
The analogy he draws is to the early days of computing, before simple, user-friendly operating systems made PCs accessible to anyone. People without a special code cannot use the new technology. Redbird is the data analysis equivalent of Microsoft Windows on Apple OS. It aims to put many more functions within the reach of everyday users while still offering more complex features for specialists.
Redbird co-founders Darren and Erin Tavgak
Tavgak, who co-founded the company with his brother Derren Tavgak and now serves as Redbird’s COO, believes that as these underlying technologies evolve over time, Redbird will evolve accordingly. It expects users to be able to, for example, issue voice-activated commands to organize data projects without even touching a keyboard. He thinks third-party application vendors will eventually want to offer tools on the platform.
That’s in the future, but customers are currently signing up for Redbird. The company, which went into business two years ago, has broken into profitability and is generating seven-figure revenue. Unlike many other startups in the space, Redbird is targeting large enterprises—typically those with more than $1 billion in revenue—which Tagvac believes are experiencing a significant data frenzy.
The company’s seed round has the potential to accelerate its growth trajectory and product development. The oversubscribed round was led by multi-stage investment firm B Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Thomson Reuters Ventures, Alumni Ventures and Soma Capital, along with other funds and angel investors. “We believe Redbird will be a mission-critical platform for enterprises to manage complex data workflows,” said Karen Page, General Partner at B Capital.
