ThoughtSpot Expands Data Development Capabilities With Acquisition
Analytics platform provider ThoughtSpot is acquiring business intelligence software developer Mode Analytics in a $200 million cash and equity deal that ThoughtSpot said will double its customer base, accelerate annual recurring revenue (ARR) and deepen its technology portfolio for data analysts and data engineers.
The acquisition, expected to close later this year, also provides ThoughtSpot with an opportunity to introduce the Mode Analytics platform to its extensive partner base. Mode Analytics’ code-first approach also creates additional opportunities in embedded analytics for ThoughtSpot.
“While we took care of the business users that fit ThoughtSpot organically, Mode [Analytics] gives us this amazing presence with the data teams, the data engineering and data analyst personas. That really helps us, if you will, tackle the same problem from two ends and make sure that the entire organization comes around on the analytics journey,” said Kuntal Vahalia, ThoughtSpot senior vice president, worldwide partners, in an interview with CRN.
ThoughtSpot, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., has become one of the leading vendors in the business intelligence space – especially after a pivot to the cloud a few years ago – with its ThoughtSpot Analytics platform that’s geared toward providing self-service business intelligence capabilities to business users throughout an enterprise.
ThoughtSpot recorded 100-percent growth in its software-as-a-service ARR during the last fiscal year, the company said In the Mode Analytics acquisition announcement. The channel has been a key part of the company’s go-to-market strategy with ThoughtSpot partnering with solution providers, systems integrators, and consulting and services companies.
As ThoughtSpot has expanded across line-of-business units within enterprise accounts the company has discovered how much investment is being made in data teams, including data analysts and data engineers, Vahalia said. Such teams are more focused on developing data analytics software – both for internal and external use – and building analytics into digital processes.
(ThoughtSpot does provide ThoughtSpot Everywhere for building business intelligence into applications.)
Vahalia pointed to the wave of development-related announcements that came out of last week’s Snowflake Summit 2023 and Databricks Data + AI Summit 2023 conferences as evidence of today’s industry focus on data engineering and development.
(ThoughtSpot partners with both Snowflake and DataBricks and the company was named Snowflake’s Innovation Technology Partner of the Year.)
The Mode Analytics platform will bolster ThoughtSpot’s capabilities there by allowing data teams to use SQL and Python development tools and notebooks to build analytical applications and data workloads.
“I think they have tremendous credibility in the BI [business intelligence} space,” Vahalia said, noting the intellectual property and “thought leadership” that ThoughtSpot is gaining through the acquisition, in addition to the Mode Analytics product portfolio.
Once the acquisition is completed Mode Analytics, based in San Francisco, will operate as a wholly owned ThoughtSpot subsidiary and push ThoughtSpot’s ARR to more than $150 million, according to the companies. There is little overlap between their customer bases, creating opportunities for each company to bring their respective products to customers.
Vahalia said Mode Analytics sold only direct and has no channel presence, creating an opportunity for ThoughtSpot to introduce the Mode Analytics portfolio to its channel partners. Another opportunity is scaling Mode Analytics through ThoughtSpot’s international market operations.
Vahalia also noted that the global systems integrators have massive data practices around data analytics, databases and development and so will particularly benefit from Mode Analytics’ code-first focus and SQL development capabilities.
“For us, this is net-new runway. We can offer a lot more product to our partners to take to market without disrupting any existing motion or without conflict,” Vahalia said. “Anything we do from here on with Mode is a plus for our partners.”
The ThoughtSpot and Mode Analytics platforms will be integrated at some point, but Vahalia said it’s too soon to provide a detailed blueprint or timetable. In the meantime, ThoughtSpot will continue to sell both products.
The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval from Mode Analytics stockholders, and is expected to close later this year.