Today we announced our investment in Advancing Analytics, alongside Lead Edge Capital and Databricks Ventures, and we could not be more excited!
We first met Terry and Simon, the founders and CEO and CTO of Advancing Analytics, at the Databricks conference back in June 2024. They were a fraction of the size they are today, but even then we could see they had something special. It wasn’t just the professionalism with which Terry and Simon ran the company, or their position as Databricks’ leading UK partner, it was their knowledge of the space, their differentiated IP and their focus on thought leadership (always a key to Tercera’s heart).
When Advancing Analytics decided it was time to take on capital to fuel their expansion efforts 18 months later, they had made meaningful progress. It’s a rare feat in our world that founders forecast astronomical growth and it actually comes to pass, but in this case, it had. They had also built out an incredibly strong executive leadership team, grown customer relationships, and strengthened their Databricks partnership even more.
By then our conviction in the Databricks ecosystem had also strengthened. In the summer of 2024, AI pilots were all the rage, but getting to production was rare. Two years later, that is starting to change. AI is making its way into repeatable workflows across functions, and as AI becomes more deeply embedded in the business, a trusted and reusable data foundation becomes a must-have, not a nice-to-have.
That shift plays directly to Databricks’ strengths. Databricks had an early advantage with technical teams, based on its open architecture, strength in unstructured data and ability to process large amounts of data quickly. Since then, it has expanded well beyond its data science roots into data warehousing, governance, business intelligence, applications and agents, broadening both its relevance to enterprise buyers and the services opportunity surrounding the platform.
Databricks is now one of the world’s most valuable privately held companies, recently valued at $188 billion. Databricks currently sits at the top of our most recent Tercera 30 rankings, as the most promising software ecosystem for services partners. Something others have taken note of. Its services partner ecosystem expanded from 193 firms in 2022 to more than 1,300 in 2026.
It’s not easy to stand out in an ecosystem that’s growing this fast, but Advancing Analytics has stood out from the crowd, and we are incredibly grateful to be partnering with them for this next stage of growth.
Leaning on Valued Partnerships
This is our second investment working alongside Lead Edge, which is the lead investor in Advancing Analytics. We have known the Lead Edge team for a number of years. A relationship that started back in the Appirio days, but was strengthened through our mutual investment in Hakkoda, a data services firm and Elite Snowflake partner. When we decided to incubate a Snowflake pure-play in 2021 with the Hakkoda founding team, we knew Lead Edge would be a partner who we and the leadership team would want around the table.
Since Hakkoda’s successful sale to IBM last year, we have been eyeing other investments where we could combine Lead Edge’s expertise in fast-growing businesses, our deep domain focus on tech services, and our Tercera Advisory capabilities. Advancing Analytics couldn’t be a more perfect fit.
This investment follows other recent investments we’ve made in fast-growing tech services firms that are benefiting from the AI boom. In the last year, we’ve made early stage investments in Tribe AI and Auctor, with a few others in the works.
Advancing Analytics, Tribe AI and Auctor all share a few common traits that we think will win in the AI era – an inspiring leadership team, strong credentials in enterprise AI, differentiated IP, and a clear domain focus that leads to incredibly strong growth. In a time where tech services firms are increasingly dividing into the “haves” and the “have-nots”, we think it’s companies like these that can skate to where the puck is going.
The path to greatness is never easy, but it’s what makes the journey fun. With the strength of the Advancing Analytics team, the tailwind of the Databricks ecosystem, and the partnership with Lead Edge, we think this is going to be one heck of a ride.