PitchBook News - Data knowledge is power

To paraphrase the introduction to the recent film Dune: Part Two, some charismatic leaders might assert that monopolizing a vital and scarce resource—in the film's case, "spice"—can yield absolute power.

Data has long been labeled the next oil or electricity, and could also be termed "spice" for its promises of foresight, but it has proven elusive to control, leading to a much more complex struggle between rivals than depicted in Dune.

Data analytics software lies at the core of our research in specific industries like AI & ML, IoT, information security, and infrastructure SaaS. We are now adding dedicated coverage to the field termed "Big Data" in PitchBook's industry vertical taxonomy as database companies take central positions in trends toward software vendor consolidation and AI applications.

Breakthroughs in hardware utilization and business models for data processing produced a boom in VC exit activity in 2020 and 2021—exceeding $50 billion each year led by Palantir and Snowflake—which attracted customers to overhaul their data infrastructure.

 

Click to access the new research.