It’s a tough day for Dataminr, the New York-based big data unicorn last valued at $4.1 billion. TechCrunch has learned that the company, which uses artificial intelligence algorithms and big data to provide predictive information about news and other global events, is currently laying off about 20% of staff, or about 150 people. It cites the impact of the economic environment, operational efficiency and “the recent rapid advancements of our artificial intelligence platform,” according to a memo from founder and CEO Ted Bailey, shared with us by a source.
In the company-wide memo we’ve seen, staff were told to work from home today while they awaited details on whether they would be part of the group of affected employees. The company had been telling staff since October that a restructuring was coming, although it is not clear which areas of the business are being affected or what the state of the company’s business has been recently.
Bailey noted in the memo that the restructuring measures “will place Dataminr on a very strong financial footing going forward.” The company will look to continue advancing its ai platform and products, specifically with the launch of a new ai platform in the first quarter that will combine predictive ai with generative ai, but even with the investment they will require, as a result of the moves. is winning today, “Dataminr will have several years of cash flow and a near-term path to profitability,” he continued. (That also potentially implies that you are preparing for a scenario where you won’t raise any more external funding.)
We reached out to Bailey, the company’s media relations team, and several other people to confirm the details provided to us by a source (who, unfortunately, appears to be among those affected—so sorry again, buddy). One of those people, who asked not to be identified, also confirmed the details. Meanwhile, there is now publications on LinkedIn since others listen to the news through the rumor mill and look to hire.
And just as we were about to publish this, a company spokesperson confirmed the memo to us.
Founded in 2009, Dataminr first rose to prominence at a time when we were seeing the emergence of companies using intelligent big data techniques to analyze unstructured data from social media posts and combine it with structured and unstructured data from other sources to understand public sentiment and other ideas.
Dataminr took that concept and applied it directly to information about global events and other news: Users equipped with mobile phones used platforms like Twitter as a means to post about something they were watching: Dataminr took advantage of this, combined it with other data sources, and was able capturing an event right as it was happening, often before the rest of the world learned the news.
Unsurprisingly, some of the data it collected and how it was used has courted controversy Through the years. But that didn’t seem to stop the company from gaining ground. Dataminr found success with key partnerships with companies such as Twitter and government, enterprise, financial services and media clients.
And in the heady funding days of the 2010s, it raised money, in a big way. It was last valued at $4.1 billion when it raised $475 million in 2021. In total, it has raised over $1 billion, with its 100+ investors including Fidelity and Morgan Stanley, as well as Venrock, IVP and many more. (Twitter, now called X, was once an investor as well, although it divested itself some time ago.) Proposal book data indicates that it raised an undisclosed sum in additional funding in two different tranches over the past year.
Dataminr has always had a large number of “subject matter experts” on staff along with engineers and sales and customer success specialists. In more recent years, and most likely this year, the company has really doubled down on the ai aspect of its technology stack, one reason it could see a path forward to reduce its workforce without impacting the business.
