Cazena, a big data startup, announced it has raised $8 million in series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz & North Bridge Venture Partners.
Cazena was founded by former leaders of Netezza, a big data appliance company, which was acquired by IBM in 2010 for $1.7 billion.
Prat Moghe, founder and CEO of Cazena, who was previously senior vice president at Netezza, said, “Today big data is too hard and too slow. It takes months to implement enterprise big data infrastructure, and millions of dollars of ongoing annual investment of resources that do not scale with growing data.”
Jit Saxena, former founder and chairman of Netezza, and Jim Baum, former CEO of Netezza, also serve on Cazena’s board of directors.
“In the past few years, enterprises have been pushed to adapt to the widening gap between the time-intensive big data analysis process and the breakneck speed of business. To shrink this gap, we think it’s time to approach the problem anew,” said Saxena.
Added Baum, “Enterprises need data at their fingertips to stay competitive, which is not an easy task given issues around infrastructure, complexity of an emerging data stack and an insatiable appetite for analytics. Just as we did in the past, we see an opportunity to disrupt the space again with Cazena.”
Ed Anderson, general partner of North Bridge Venture Partners, said, “Cazena represents a similar infrastructure opportunity, with a stellar team and deep industry expertise. We are looking forward to working with Prat and the Cazena team on this board.”