The outlook for private tech companies involved in big data and analytics is bright in 2019 due to growing demand from corporate clients, according to SharesPost’s 2018 Business Intelligence and Data Analytics Survey.

In its second annual survey of the market, IT executives said data analytics and business intelligence have become a strategic corporate function for their organizations. More than 90% plan to increase their spending on business intelligence tools over the next twelve months to meet their needs.

“Data collection has continued to grow exponentially over the past few years because it is the rocket fuel that powers growth,” said Managing Director Rohit Kulkarni, Head of Research for SharesPost, Inc. “Reflecting the market’s demand, private tech data analytics companies are benefiting in terms of growth and valuations. Alteryx went public in 2018 while Cylance was acquired, both exits at lofty multiples to their estimated revenue. This could bode well for companies that will follow, such as Palantir, which is expected to do an IPO in the near term.”

The findings are based on a SharesPost survey of more than 300 IT executives and decision-makers in October 2018. The survey was intended to assess the market drivers for Business Intelligence and data analytics tools over the past 12 months.

Among the key findings:

  • Niche Business Intelligence firms are gaining market share. Analytics companies such as Tableau, Splunk and Qlik, which offer data visualization, reporting or integration tools, are winning customers from all-in-one service providers such as Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and SAP. Tableau users rose to 33% from 18% last year; Splunk users were up to 22% from 19%; and Qlik users increased to 11% from 8%. During the same period, the percentage of IBM users fell to 40% from 54%; Oracle users decreased to 38% from 45%; and SAP users declined to 29% from 38%.
  • Descriptive and predictive analytics tools experienced strong growth. The percentage of IT professionals using descriptive and predictive analytics grew to high 63% from 40% over the past 12 months, while content analytics usage increased to 54% from 43%. This exponential rate of data collection has increased the need for easy visualization and tools to analyze and act on data.
  • Unstructured data remains a big challenge for businesses. Over 40% businesses say they must frequently deal with unstructured data, which creates a variety of challenges. Overall more than 95% of businesses have to manage unstructured data. The problem is especially acute for small- and medium-sized business. Almost half of the IT professionals from smaller companies say they must manage unstructured data all the time, up from 43% in 2017. The percentage also rose for mid-size companies from 55% from 51% over the same period.

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About SharesPost, Inc.

SharesPost is a FINRA-registered broker-dealer, SEC-registered Alternative Trading System (ATS) and Registered Investment Advisor. SharesPost helped launch the secondary market for private tech companies in 2009 and has built the leading platform for secondary transactions and digital securities. SharesPost provides the private tech asset class with a suite of trading and lending solutions to facilitate shareholder and option holder liquidity. With more than $4 billion in secondary market transactions in the shares of more than 200 leading technology companies, SharesPost provides the trading, research and online tools to transact in the private market with confidence. SharesPost has trading operations with licensed brokers in San Francisco, Menlo Park, and New York City. For more information, visit sharespost.com.

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