YFM backed data company becomes latest ‘unicorn’
The data company Matillion, which is backed by Leeds-based YFM Equity Partners has become Britain’s latest “unicorn”, raising $150m in a deal that values it at $1.5bn.
The cloud data integration platform which specialises in helping global businesses to make sense of their data secured the Series E funding in a round led by General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm, with participation from Battery Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
This funding marks Matillion’s second triple-digit round of 2021, bringing the total amount raised to $310m at a valuation of $1.5bn.
Founded in Manchester in 2011 by CEO Matthew Scullion and chief technology officer Ed Thompson, YFM Equity Partners first backed the business in 2016 to the tune of £4m, which allowed the business to open its first US office and expand its product range.
The firm now has offices in New York, Denver and Seattle and YFM remains a close and trusted adviser. From a team of 18 people in 2015 and a turnover of £1m, the company has grown to more than 270-strong working between dual head offices in Denver and Manchester, and offices in New York.
“Enterprises need to effectively close information gaps by rapidly transforming operational data into analytics-ready datasets that fuel business intelligence, AI, and ML innovation,” said Matthew Scullion, CEO of Matillion.
“With Matillion, large organizations are empowered with a data operating system that is purpose-built for the enterprise, enabling a broad spectrum of data users — from data scientists and engineers to marketers and business analysts — to make data useful.”
Coming off of its Series D round in February, Matillion has delivered accelerated growth in 2021, including recognition by Snowflake as its FY2021 Technology Partner of the Year for Data Integration.
Chris Caulkin, managing director and head of technology for EMEA at General Atlantic said: “As organizations look for ways to harness data to make better business decisions, the market for cloud data integration and transformation is expanding,”
“We believe that Matillion’s low-code ETL platform simplifies the process of constructing data pipelines and preparing data for analysis, enabling citizen data scientists and data engineers alike to play a valuable role in extracting data-based insights. We look forward to supporting the team through its next phase of growth and expansion.”
David Hall, YFM managing director comments: “Our provision of vital early stage funding facilitated Matillion’s transition into a significant presence in the US, demonstrating how the UK can nurture the growth of small tech businesses. Now one of the most successful enterprise software companies in the UK, Matillion is a great example of VCT funding achieving exactly what it is meant to do – creating a valuable business that provides employment, tax revenue and exports.”
