10 Hot Emerging Vendors For May

Emerging Vendors Focused On Big Data Analysis, Next-Generation Security

Like the thaw much of the U.S. is finally experiencing after the long, cold winter, the number of startups coming out of stealth mode, winning their first rounds of financing and debuting their first products has been on the rise in recent weeks.

This month's crop of young companies includes startups developing advanced big data analytics software, development tools for building data-driven applications, identity validation technology, WAN and cloud security software, next-generation marketing automation applications, and more.

Numerify Launches Analytical Platform For IT Operations

Co-Founder and CEO: Gaurav Rewari

Big data software startup Numerify this week debuted its much-anticipated analytical platform for IT operations. Built on ServiceNow's IT service management software, Numerify IT Analytics integrates data from multiple cloud and on-premise data sources to provide IT managers with insight about IT assets, costs, service-level agreement compliance and even staffing.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Numerify was founded in 2012 by business intelligence software veterans from MicroStrategy, Hyperion and Oracle -- the latter including CEO Rewari and product development vice president Srikant Gokulnatha. The company first appeared on most observers' radar screens in October when it raised $8 million in first-round funding.

ITinvolve Facilitates DevOps Transformation

CEO: Logan Wray

One of the biggest challenges IT managers face is getting line-of-business, IT operations and development teams all on the same page. Houston-based ITinvolve, founded in May 2011, develops software that pulls information from disparate data sources to help management understand and analyze dependencies among IT requirements, policies, applications, releases and infrastructure. The result is a trusted DevOps data foundation for making IT development and deployment decisions.

In addition to ITinvolve's core offerings (ITinvolve and ITinvolve Service Manager), the company recently launched ITinvolve Agility Manager for improving project delivery times and quality, and ITinvolve Drift Manager for identifying and correcting application configuration "drift."

Trustev Provides Real-Time Identity Validation

Founder and CEO: Pat Phelan

Trustev's real-time, online verification software for e-commerce companies is used to prevent fraud by validating the identity of online shoppers. The system validates individual identities using social, behavioral and transactional information -- the latter using "digital fingerprinting" technology that matches a user's transaction, device and browser data against records in Trustev's database.

Founded in 2013, Trustev, based in Cork, Ireland, recently struck an alliance with Datameer to use that company's big data analytics software to help Trustev customers integrate and analyze information from multiple sources.

Elastica Debuts Security Technology For Cloud Apps And Services

President and CEO: Rehan Jalil

Elastica recently emerged from stealth mode and released its CloudSOC technology for securing cloud applications and services, offering a remedy for IT managers' lack of visibility into the security of their SaaS-based applications. Elastica also develops applications that run on the Cloud SOC platform for auditing cloud service operations, detecting security threats, enforcing security policies, and investigating security-related incidents.

Elastica, founded in 2012 and based in San Jose, Calif., raised $6.3 million in first-round funding from Mayfield Fund in February.

Espresso Logic Speeds Development Of Data-Driven Apps

CEO: R. Paul Singh

Espresso Logic this month released its Live Browser software that companies can use to quickly build Web and mobile applications that access back-end databases such as Oracle Database, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server. Live Browser provides an instant HTML5 user interface to a database with built-in row and column security.

The vendor also offers its Live API tools for developing REST APIs for accessing enterprise data, and the Live Logic tools for building applications with JavaScript and Reactive Programming. Espresso Logic, based in Santa Clara, Calif., was founded in September 2013 and raised $1.6 million in seed funding in November.

DataRPM Offers Natural Language Business Analytics Platform

Co-Founder and CEO: Sundeep Sanghavi

DataRPM says its analytics platform for building multitenant business intelligence systems eliminates the long, expensive process of building data warehouses that pull data from multiple sources, and resolves the problem of complex learning curves for users. The company's "computational graph search" technology automatically models data from disparate sources using semantic algorithms and provides a natural language interface for analyzing and visualizing data.

Fairfax, Va.-based DataRPM was founded in January 2012. In March the company raised $5.1 million in its first round of funding led by InterWest Partners with participation by CIT GAP Fund, the startup's angel investor.

vIPtela Developing Technology To Improve WAN Security And Performance

CEO: Amir Khan

San Jose, Calif.-based vIPtela is close to introducing its computer networking architecture, under development for two years, which the company said will help businesses secure and simplify their corporate networks while reducing operational costs. The startup's work comes as new IT services, hybrid cloud systems and mobile devices are overwhelming network systems.

In March vIPtela, founded in February 2012, raised $33.5 million in venture financing from Sequoia Capital. In April the company hired former Juniper Networks and Nicira executive Pepe Garcia as its vice president of systems engineering, and former Cisco executive James Winebrenner as sales vice president.

Wise.io Builds Machine Learning Applications For Predictive Analytics

CEO: Jeff Erhardt

Berkeley, Calif.-based Wise.io develops applications that use machine learning technologies to generate predictions in such areas as customer service optimization (including customer acquisition, monetization and retention), fraud detection, and industrial safety.

Founded in May 2012, Wise.io launched its Applications-as-a-Service one year ago. In March of this year the company raised $2.5 million in Series A funding led by Voyager Capital and hired former Revolution Analytics CEO Erhardt as the company's new CEO.

Connectivity Is Developing Marketing Automation Apps For Small Businesses

CEO: Matt Booth

Burbank, Calif.-based Connectivity develops Software-as-a-Service customer intelligence applications that are designed to help small businesses monitor and analyze customer interactions online -- everything from customer reviews to social media comments. The idea is to aggregate all that information into one dashboard that small businesses can use to monitor what's being said about them.

Founded in 2012, Connectivity recently raised $6.35 million in Series A funding from Greycroft Partners, Rincon Venture Partners, Daher Capital, Double M Partners, TenOneTen ventures and others.

Appuri Offers Online Analytical Customer Data Platform

CEO: Damon Danieli

Appuri developed an online customer data platform that captures customer touchpoint data, from both internal and external sources, and uses it to develop customer profiles for businesses. The service is delivered as a virtual private cloud that gives businesses direct SQL access to a petabyte-scale data warehouse.

Founded in April 2012, San Francisco-based Appuri was a winner of the O'Reilly Strata Conference startup showcase in October.