Narrative has raised $ 8.5 million in Series A funding and is launching a new product designed to further simplify the data buying and selling process.
I've already written about the company's existing market and software for managing data transactions. With the new Data Streams Marketplace, the process should be easier than ever, not much different than buying products on Amazon.
"Essentially, the idea was to take the best parts of e-commerce and search models and apply them to an offer not intended for consumers to find, discover and ultimately buy data," founder and CEO Nick Jordan (in photo above left) Tell me. "The premise is that it is as easy to purchase data as it is to purchase material online."
For example, Jordan showed me how a marketer can search, browse and search for different types of data in the market. Once they find something they want to buy (for example, the mobile IDs of people who have the Uber Driver app installed on their phones or the Zoom app) at a price they are willing to pay (usually via subscription), they can simply add the data set to the cart, enter the credit card details, accept the terms of service and make the payment.
According to Jordan, this approach has gotten more interesting in recent months, because with all the uncertainty, businesses need more data and they need it quickly. For example, he suggested that a large company that spends tens of millions of dollars on advertising "needs a way to find and buy data almost programmatically and make the entire operation take five minutes rather than five months: these are the orders of magnitude that we're talking about here. "
This data is typically sold by third party vendors who are checked by Narrative before joining the platform. Jordan also said the marketplace allows buyers to learn more about who is buying the data and even establish a direct relationship, something that could be important for understanding things like regulatory compliance and data quality.
Although fiction works to "deeply understand [sellers'] data collection methodologies, "warned Jordan," There is not necessarily a silver bullet for things that are safe from a regulatory perspective.
Likewise, he said that Narrative will not evaluate the quality of the data sold on the platform. He said, "Data quality is in the eye of the beholder. Someone's signal is someone else's noise."
The goal with both of these issues is to provide transparency and allow shoppers to do more research when needed. Jordan also said that Narrative is building a third-party application marketplace and this could include applications that get the quality of a dataset.
"In the long run, I can imagine an almost infinite number of use cases," he said.
Narrative had previously raised $ 5.3 million in funding, according to Crunchbase. Series A was led by G20 Ventures with additional funding from existing investors Glasswing Ventures, MathCapital, Revel Partners, Tuhaye Venture Partners and XSeed Capital.
Jordan said the new round will allow the company to hire in areas such as product, engineering, sales and marketing. She also noted that Narrative has long prioritized hiring team members from across North America and recently focused more on outreach and hiring from underrepresented groups.
"It's easier to say it's done," he acknowledged. "Any company that is doing it right must make it a priority and not just something they hope will happen."