Looker Launches With $2M in Funding and More Than Twenty Enterprise Customers for Their “Sequel to SQL”

Query-based Business Intelligence Platform built by former Netscape and LiveOps Technologist emerges from stealth with funding from First Round Capital and PivotNorth

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Looker Data Sciences, Inc., announced today the launch of their new query-based Business Intelligence software platform, Looker, with $2M in funding led by First Round Capital and PivotNorth Capital. Lloyd Tabb, a programming languages innovator, Netscape browser war veteran and crowdsourcing pioneer founded Looker.

“The Looker BI Platform™ is the first solution to simplify the advanced functionality of traditional Business Intelligence once available only to Fortune 500 companies into a single application that can be easily accessed by all”

“The Looker BI Platform™ is the first solution to simplify the advanced functionality of traditional Business Intelligence once available only to Fortune 500 companies into a single application that can be easily accessed by all,” said Lloyd Tabb, Founder and CEO of Looker.

The Looker BI Platform is a Business Intelligence tool built for extending data discovery functionality to everyone in the organization to make decisions based on real-time facts. Looker has created a new approach to Business Intelligence called query-based BI. Query-based BI empowers users to be curious, and perform deep analytics across their organization’s entire set of data. From the CEO to the Senior Data Analyst to an Account Manager, everyone can and should use Looker. On the backend, Looker’s approach uses a new modeling language, LookML, which enhances SQL for analytics so end-users can perform powerful analytics without needing to know how a query is written.

“Previous BI tools are like trying to navigate SQL with a compass and sextant – Looker is the GPS,” continued Mr. Tabb. “We’re huge believers in the power of SQL for analytics, but current Business Intelligence tools don’t empower it to be great. They are either too focused on static or parameterized dashboards, or are complex and laborious, requiring an army of engineers to implement.”

While operating in stealth mode over much of 2012, Looker has signed more than twenty clients who use its Business Intelligence platform to drive better analytics and improve business operations; one such customer is Simply Hired.

“As one of the world’s largest job search engines, Simply Hired houses a tremendous volume of data. Looker provides us with the ability to access this data across business functions – from sales to engineering to customer engagement,” said Suresh ‘DP’ Duddi, Vice President of Engineering for Simply Hired. “The Looker BI Platform allows our entire organization to easily dig deep into our data and collaborate on insights that are actionable and critical to our success.”

Looker is focused on delivering a data discovery platform that is active, agile, and collaborative. This means that company data is available to all employees at the moment of decision, that insights can occur through curiosity and exploration rather than a passive dashboard experience, and all insights reside in a central repository, making cross-functional data accessible to the entire organization via a single tool. Companies can learn more and sign up for a free trial at www.looker.com.

About Looker

Looker is a Business Intelligence software company that focuses on the intersection of economics and engineering, helping customers use data to achieve success. Looker is enabling true discovery-driven businesses, one customer at a time. Looker was founded by Lloyd Tabb, Principal Engineer at Netscape and former CTO of LiveOps. Investors in Looker include First Round Capital and PivotNorth. The company is based in Santa Cruz, CA.

Useful Links:

Looker website: www.looker.com