The new funding round, led by Riverwood Capital, brings the Redwood City, Calif. The funding round included participation from new investors Sanabil Investments and Snowflake Ventures and existing investors Costanoa Ventures, Dell Technologies Capital, Icon Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures and Union Grove Partners. Today businesses and organizations are wrestling with exploding volumes of data and struggling to identify the data they have and manage it.

Alation develops data catalogue software and tools for data governance and data search and discovery that businesses and organizations use to identify and manage their data assets for business intelligence, AI and machine learning tasks and for meeting data regulatory and governance requirements. An initial public offering for Alation is probably still two to three years off, co-founder and CEO Satyen Sangani said in an interview with CRN. Sangani also said:

“We just think we have such a massive market opportunity in building out the data intelligence category and realizing its full vision and capability. There are so many different elements of data – the complexities with data and making it really, really simple is something we could spend the next 20 years on and still have work to do. I think the market is in its infancy. What we’ve got today is a drop in the bucket relative to the market opportunity we see in front of us.”

Data governance and compliance have historically been the biggest use-cases for Alation’s software. But Sangani said demand is also being driven by the need for trusted data for AI and machine learning tasks, for data cloud migration, and for the growing use of data for self-service, data-intensive applications.

“There’s just tons of data moving from on-premises systems to the cloud, workloads and applications moving from on-premises systems to the cloud, and we see that literally every single day. Alation’s strategic alliances with data cloud service provider Snowflake and cloud application vendor Salesforce are catalysts for Alation sales for such tasks.”

Alation is focused on leveraging the new relationship with data cloud service provider Snowflake: The two companies plan “deep product integrations and joint go-to-market initiatives,” Alation said in the announcement of the new funding.

Alation will apply some of the new funding to accelerate research and development efforts for its products, including developing connections to additional data sources and extending its software to the cloud. Some of the new financial resources will be used to continue Alation’s global expansion, including expanding into new vertical markets and establishing relationships with solution providers and ISV partners in EMEA and the Asia-Pacific region.

The company launched its official channel program, the Alation Partner Network, in July 2020 to recruit reseller, systems integrator and technology partners.

Since its founding in 2000, Astound Commerce has achieved rapid organic development, and today with a team of 1,300 professionals worldwide the company is delivering exceptional digital commerce experiences for global brands such as Puma, L’Oréal, Under Armour, FLOR, TOMS, and Crocs. The RLH investment comes on the heels of exponential growth for Astound, and the company will use these funds to achieve its strategic plan, launched in the beginning of 2020 with the aim of making Astound the global market leader in digital commerce.

“As we came to recognize RLH’s people-focused philosophy and its deep commitment to preserving the culture and operations of the businesses it supports, prioritizing talent acquisition and retention, the choice was clear,” said Michael Kahn, Global CEO at Astound Commerce. “For the past three decades, RLH has invested in technology business services, healthcare, and government services, in particular seeking out superlative leadership teams with a clear plan for exponential growth,” he continued.

“We welcome RLH Equity Partners as a strategic investor in Astound Commerce, and are delighted with Salesforce Ventures’ continued support. I believe this partnership will strengthen Astound’s position as the world-class digital commerce expert and boost our development in existing and new markets. With these funds we expect to add new technologies to our portfolio and hire more talents to our team,” noted Ilya Vinogradsky, co-founder and COO/CIO at Astound Commerce.

“This investment is a key indicator of trust in our business and an important signal for our team and the market in general. RLH funding will enable Astound Commerce to scale new heights and create the jobs of the future in all countries of our presence. We believe this agreement helps our trajectory to become a global market leader in digital commerce and enhance our positions as an attractive employer,” added Darja Gornitska, Director of Global Delivery Operations at Astound Commerce.

RLH Equity Partners has a long history of helping promising businesses capitalize on their potential, offering seasoned guidance as its team focuses on strengthening existing infrastructure and supporting new initiatives. Other RLH investments include Salesforce cloud consultancy Bluewolf (since acquired by IBM), Salesforce B2B agency Shift 7 Digital, financial and technology consultancy CrossCountry Consulting, and pharmaceutical industry consulting firm Clearview Healthcare Partners.

Before this major investment from RLH Equity Partners, in 2019 Astound Commerce received funds from Salesforce Ventures to expand the company’s presence in priority markets and increase the share of its projects in the overall Salesforce ecosystem. Since that time Astound Commerce introduced new engineering centers in Turkey and India, and its team of tech experts increased by a third.

Astound Commerce provides end-to-end services—from creating a data-driven strategy and delivering UX services to building an ecommerce solution for a variety of clients. The company was founded in 2000 in San Francisco and currently has ten engineering centers in six countries.