Okera Launches Out of Stealth with $14.6M in Funding to Relieve Tension Between Agility and Data Governance for the Modern Data-Driven Enterprise

SAN FRANCISCO, May 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Okera today launched out of stealth mode with $12 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners, bringing the total amount raised to date to $14.6 million. The company was previously known as Cerebro Data. Okera addresses the enormous gap in data management across heterogeneous data stores and formats and gives data consumers, owners and stewards a unified platform for confidently unlocking the power of their data without compromising on governance or compliance. Existing investors Felicis Ventures and Capital One Growth Ventures participated in the round. Ethan Kurzweil, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and Wesley Chan, Managing Director at Felicis Ventures, joined Okera's Board of Directors. The new funding will be used to accelerate operational growth.

With the general availability of its first product, the Okera Active Data Access Platform, Okera solves one of the most challenging data management problems facing the enterprise today as organizations strive to be more data-driven and agile while supporting evolving data privacy and regulatory requirements. Unlike traditional data management approaches that either restrict access in the name of security or leave data open in the name of innovation, Okera allows data teams to have a unified way to actively manage access to data with fine granularity in a flexible and agile manner, with detailed visibility into how data is being used.

Okera's Active Data Access Platform uniquely sits in between large data lakes and analytics tools and frameworks as an enterprise-wide platform that facilitates the provisioning, access, governance and auditing of data across multi-cloud, multi-data format and multi-tool environments. It ensures data platform teams maintain data protection at scale while data scientists and analysts achieve faster time to access, eliminating the trade-off between agility and governance.

"We're not a security or governance company; we are a data management company for modern data platforms. We believe companies should have the ability to innovate while also maintaining proper data governance. There can be a more scalable way to address access, governance, quality and lifecycle management across heterogeneous, decentralized data platforms. This empowers all data consumers, owners and stewards to have a unified way to interact with data for use regardless of their environment," said Amandeep Khurana, Okera co-founder and CEO.

"We are excited to partner with the incredible founding team at Okera who has built a technically differentiated product that solves a pressing problem for today's largest enterprises," said Kurzweil. "Moving data to the cloud gives large enterprises the ability to unify data that has traditionally been siloed. However, enterprises still face serious problems as they work to ensure the data is both secure and actionable. Okera is the first platform to enable enterprises to gain greater visibility into the datasets available to them, make this data actionable, and put in place fine-grained security controls in order to remain compliant with data regulations."

Okera customers include Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries. In addition to the funding news, Okera announced an enterprise customer win with Capital One.

"Capital One is a data-driven company. We develop and build our own technology to deliver breakthrough products and services to our customers," said Devon Cavanagh, Senior Director, Data Engineering, Capital One. "We have agile teams working together to develop software and algorithms and bring insights to teams across the enterprise. Okera helps enable us to provide teams with secure and appropriate access to the right data to inform sound, strategic business decisions."

The technical benefits of Okera's Active Data Access Platform include:

• Simplified access and a centralized view of data through an active schema registry and collaborative workspaces. Data can be accessed from any source, using any tool, in any environment.
• Scalable protection through tokenization and fine-grained access control and anonymization with the ability to control access at the cell level.
• Greater visibility and auditability so data usage can be monitored down to the cell level.

Okera's founding team also brings deep industry roots having served in senior roles at Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cloudera, Databricks, Splunk, Microsoft, and Oracle.

For more information on the company, visit www.okera.com.

About Okera
Okera is the first software provider to enable the management of data access and governance at scale for today's modern heterogeneous data environments. Built on the belief that companies can do more with their data, Okera's Active Data Access Platform allows agility and governance to co-exist and gives data consumers, owners and stewards the confidence to unlock the power of their data for innovation and growth. This unique, enterprise-wide platform facilitates the provisioning, accessing, governing and auditing of data in today's multi-cloud, multi-data format, and multi-tool world. Learn more at www.okera.com or contact us at [email protected].

SOURCE Okera