Automated Insights, the Durham, NC-based startup whose platform translates Big Data content into plain English, announced this morning that it has been acquired by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners and its portfolio company STATS, the sports data and content platform. Through the acquisition, the company’s natural language generation (NLG) technology – which has enabled customers like The Associated Press, Yahoo!, and Comcast to automatically transform raw data into human-like written stories – will be fast-tracked for adoption in other industries, including sports, business intelligence, media, personal fitness, and healthcare.
“Our entire team is excited to accelerate our growth alongside Vista and STATS,” said Ai CEO Robbie Allen in a statement. “Vista immediately understood the value proposition of and opportunities for our solution, and we believe they will be a great partner in helping our team take Ai to the next level. With Vista’s support and experience, we will continue our focus on product development and innovation as well as exploring new frontiers of artificial intelligence. For Automated Insights, this acquisition opens up incredible possibilities.”
Under the terms of the acquisition, Automated Insights will continue to operate in Durham, and will be a subsidiary of STATS. While under STATS, the company will continue to work with its current clients, as well as push into more opportunities in data-driven industries both inside and outside the realm of sports. According to a blog post written by Allen, the company will continue to run independently; the acquisition will just enable them to further invest in Wordsmith (their NLG technology) and implement it into other industries at a much faster rate.
“[Automated Insights] will be independent,” writes Allen. “We will continue expanding relationships with our current customers as well as aggressively growing our pipeline of new customers. Our name, our team, our management, our culture, and our office at the awesome American Tobacco Campus will all stay the same.”
Backed by Steve Case, Automated Insights last year raised a $5.5 million Series B led by Osage Venture Partners. At the same time, the company announced a major deal with The Associated Press that tasked the company with providing up to 4,400 quarterly earnings reports for publicly traded companies to The AP, using Wordsmith’s technology (these earnings reports were hence translated into layman’s terms).