Pentaho raises $12M for open source "business intelligence" software

February 20, 2008 | Matt Marshall

Pentaho, an open source “business intelligence” company, said it has raised a $12 million third round of funding Benchmark Capital.

The funding comes at a time of significant consolidation in the estimated $6.25 billion business intelligence industry: Within the last year, Oracle has acquired Hyperion, SAP acquired Business Objects and IBM acquired Cognos.

Existing investors Index Ventures and New Enterprise Associates also joined the round.

The investment is a predictable one by Benchmark, even if the firm prides itself on trying to be contrarian. Benchmark’s partner Peter Fenton continues to back open source companies, and the business intelligence sector is just the latest area he is going after.
Benchmark also bet on open source companies Red Hat, Zimbra, and MySQL.

The four-year-old company says it has had three million lifetime downloads, and has more than 20,000 registered community members. It says customers include Cox Communications, Monsanto Corporation, Savvion, Sun Microsystems and U.S. Naval Air Command.

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About the Author, Matt Marshall

Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.