i know what you’re thinking — “another big data startup.” yes, it’s true, but beyond the cliche, there is truth and opportunity, and when it comes to larger enterprise businesses, small decisions can have tremendous effects — good and not so good — on the trajectory of a business. that’s where a company like ClearStory Data comes in. as i wrote about earlier at the time of our investment, larger amounts of data will undoubtedly lead to more noise, so businesses may place a premium on harnessing deep machine learning technologies to not only help with data sifting and analysis, but to also facilitate discovery of insights that the human eye may be incapable of observing.

ClearStory’s approach, announced today, is novel. by combining the power of its platform with various data sources and collaboration, Data Intelligence is enabled via a simple and intuitive user experience. up to this point, while decisions in the enterprise were often in consultation with the data, the data itself may not have been so good or as good as it could be – let alone collaboration around the data. here, there’s a larger trend afoot in the market for data intelligence and relative implications for how this data can inform decisions which directly tie to real returns on investment decisions within the enterprise.

the discovery from harnessing big data in the enterprise will spawn many new opportunities. as an investor, i’m obviously excited to meet founders who are thinking about using data to architect new systems and solutions, as well as new business models. it’s the deep learning from the data which excites me most — as the saying goes, “in God i trust, all others must bring data.” well, i’d put a spin on that — others may also want to bring data analysis tools and systems that can answer questions about the data in a collaborative manner in real time. in other words, the data is great, but not good enough anymore. it’s this “anymore” which creates the opportunity for the next set of founders to build something new, backed by hard data, which couldn’t have been known before.