In an exciting development, ServiceNow recently announced its intent to purchase Data.World, a leading data management and collaboration platform headquartered in Austin, Texas. This strategic move follows ServiceNow’s earlier acquisition of Moveworks and is part of the company’s broader initiative to enhance its artificial intelligence capabilities. With the deal closing in the next few weeks, Data.World will soon be absorbed into ServiceNow’s existing operations.
Launched in 2015, Data.World quickly became one of the most well-known startups to emerge with a new collaborative approach to data management. The company raised $50 million in its Series C funding round in 2022, bringing its last private valuation to $350 million. Data.World has now raised more than $130 million in venture financing so far. Well-known firms, including Alumni Ventures, Prologis Ventures, and Shasta Ventures, have all invested in this debut fund.
In reality, this acquisition nudges ServiceNow down the long path toward agentic AI. Kirk, currently the Senior Vice President of Corporate Business Development at ServiceNow, recently put his finger on this essential idea. Kirk stressed that the company is looking at an approach that mixes building and buying those capabilities to enable this transition.
“In approaching this transition, it is kind of three-dimensional chess right now to figure out whether to build, buy, or partner,” Kirk stated. This advanced approach underscores the challenges at stake in developing their AI prospects.
Gaurav Rewari is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Data Analytics at ServiceNow. He reiterates that building deep partnerships is key to deploying AI in equitable and impactful ways. As he explained, the only way to realize value at scale from advanced AI and other “fancy” capabilities is to get over very deep hurdles with data.
As I like to say, getting to agentic “AI heaven” very much runs through an arduous gauntlet of “AI hell.” The truth is that this trip always includes some amount of data hell. Rewari remarked.
We’re excited to start the journey of empowering ServiceNow’s customers with mission-critical, high-quality tools for deploying AI responsibly and at scale. Kirk told me that the company had tested out a lot of different acquisitions before being blown away by what Data.World had created.
“We had assessed a whole lot of these companies and walked away just incredibly impressed with what they’d built,” he said.
Throughout the acquisition process, ServiceNow incredibly ambitious plans to leverage Data.World’s expertise in data management to enrich its service offerings. This acquisition further highlights ServiceNow’s ongoing mission to innovate its technology offerings in a more crowded competitive landscape.