Alibaba Leads $26.4 Million B Round for Data Analytics Startup SQream

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has led a $26.4 million B Series for Israel-based data analytics startup SQream Technologies, SQream announced Wednesday.

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Both existing and new investors participated in the round, including Hanaco Venture Capital, Sistema.vc, World Trade Ventures, Paradiso Ventures, Glory Ventures, and Silvertech Ventures.

New York-headquartered SQream develops a graphics processing units (GPU) based database management system that offers corporations an economical way to analyze large datasets. Called SQream DB, the company states its database enables companies to analyze up to 20 times more data at up to 100 times the speed, at as little as a tenth of the cost. Founded in 2010, the company also has a research and development center in Tel Aviv.

In February, Alibaba's cloud computing arm announced a partnership with SQream to market the database to its Chinese cloud customers. At the time, both Alibaba and SQream declined to comment to Calcalist regarding a possible investment made as part of the deal. Alibaba founder and Chairman Jack Ma visited Israel in May.

“We are pleased to expand our relationship with SQream, and work together to accelerate the growth of the cloud industry,” said in a statement Chaoqun Zhan, director of Alibaba database business.

For the fiscal year 2017, Alibaba reported a 104% year-over-year increase in its cloud business, generated primarily from services such as data storage, elastic computing, database and large-scale computing services.

The funding raised will enable SQream to accelerate development and sales, said in a statement Ami Gal, SQream CEO and co-founder.