Prague-based Keboola, a data-platform-as-a-service startup, has landed a $4.5 million seed investment. The financing round was led by Prague-based Presto Ventures (which backed Okredo) alongside participation from Reflex Capital, the VC fund of Mall Group founder Ondřej Fryc, and a number of prominent angel investors, including Eduard Kučera, founder of Avast, and Tomáš Čupr, founder of Rohlik Group.

Europe and North America growth plans

Until this funding round, Keboola had been entirely self-funded and was running in bootstrap mode. It will use the funds to accelerate growth in Europe and North America.

Keboola is on track to achieve an annual subscription revenue (or ARR) of more than $8 million in 2022. Also, it expects to at least double revenues in 2023.

Pavel Doležal, co-founder and CEO of Keboola, said: “We believe in the potential of data and AI to fundamentally transform any business. But this requires tons of time and money to build and maintain infrastructure. Today, only Amazon, Google and a handful of other companies are really able to make the most of their data. We want to unlock the data opportunity for all others.”

Přemysl Rubeš, founder of lead investor Presto Ventures, said: “The Keboola team has been ahead of its time with their product. They have done a fantastic job of scaling the company organically and turning Keboola into a cult company within the data analytics and business intelligence community. We are excited to back them to accelerate that growth and win in a global market predicted to reach $655 billion by 2029.”

Operating system for data

Keboola was founded in 2017 by Petr Šimeček, Pavel Doležal, and Milan Veverka in Prague. Pavel and Petr met in late-2014 and started to brainstorm the future of data, ML, and what is needed to support true data democratisation and full automation of business processes with AI. They identified the need for an abstraction layer or “Operating system for data” that would allow everybody to build data applications and data.

Now, Keboola is a team of 80, which comprises 75% male and 25% female with a commitment to continue to promote diversity across all levels of the organization from the leadership team down.

Snowflake-based fully-scalable platform

Keboola is a fully-scalable platform built on Snowflake, which provides a unique solution for every data-driven company. From small companies to enterprises, across the globe and all segments. It provides enterprise-grade security and governance. The platform provides integrations, automations, and a unified interface for companies’ myriad data analysis apps and tools.

The platform is completely open, allowing outside app integrations and flexible coding language options. These characteristics enable wide customisation possibilities with the option for organisations to write their own code and components, including machine learning algorithms.

Currently, RBI (restaurants), DXC, ProductBoard, Mall Group, and Rohlik Group are among its clients and these belong to diverse fields such as retail, e-commerce, marketing, financial services, and hospitality.

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