Versive was a

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

based in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Washington, US. Founded in 2012 by Stephen Purpura and Chris Metcalfe, the company sells on-premises software,

cloud services Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed computing, ...

, and professional service solutions to help businesses automate human expertise. As of September 2014, Versive has raised $42 million in total investment. The company changed its name from Context Relevant to Versive in 2017. In October 2018, Versive was acquired by eSentire.

Product

Versive has developed a platform that ingests data, determines what's important, and creates a problem-specific solution that can be deployed while continually learning. The proprietary high-performance machine learning technology accelerates deployment of machine learning solutions. Problem-specific applications provide an experience that reduces the workload on users building complicated models. Deployment options include public or private

clouds In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may com ...

, traditional servers, and Hadoop clusters. Versive's software has been applied in various industries. The information gathered through the technology aims to help clients predict activity based on observed trends. The technology can be used to help security teams detect advanced cyber threats, and won the Best Emerging Security Product at Interop in May 2017. It is useful for calculating prices and other risks. The system can also detect fraud.

Investment history

Versive launched with $1.3 million in seed funding from

Madrona Venture Group Madrona Venture Group is an American venture capital firm, founded in 1995 and based in Seattle, Washington. Madrona specializes in seed, startup, Series A and early stage investments. Company Madrona was founded in 1995 by Tom Alberg, Paul Go ...

and Seattle-based

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

Geoff Entress. Other initial investors included Mike McSherry,

Cliff Kushler Cliff Kushler is an inventor and entrepreneur who co-founded Tegic, the company that created T9 predictive input software used on mobile devices, and Swype, a technology for using swiping motions to type words on touch-screen keyboards. He previous ...

, and Mark Illing of

Swype Swype was a virtual keyboard for touchscreen smartphones and tablets originally developed by Swype Inc., founded in 2002, where the user enters words by sliding a finger or stylus from the first letter of a word to its last letter, lifting only be ...

/ Nuance. The startup received an additional $1.5 million in funding from Madrona in November 2012. In July 2013, Versive raised a total of $7 million in a round of series A funding. The round included previous investors such as Madrona and Entress, as well as

Vulcan Capital Vulcan LLC is a privately held company founded by the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his sister Jody Allen in 1986 to establish and oversee the family's diverse business activities and philanthropic endeavors. It includes Vulcan Real Estate ...

and Bloomberg Beta. In May, June, and September 2014, Versive raised an additional $35 million in total investment in three chunks from Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bloomberg Beta, New York Life, Formation 8, Madrona, Work-Bench, and Seattle angel investors.

Partners

Versive has partnered with Good Harbor Security Risk Management, a company founded by Richard A. Clarke, a counterterrorism expert and former cyber-security adviser under the Bush administration. Clarke sits on Versive's advisory board and, through his company, helps Versive to repair security breaches and ensure security compliance, among other services.

Awards and recognition

In May 2014, Versive was named to DataBeat's Innovation Showdown. In April 2014, Versive was nominated for Pacific Northwest Startup of the Year by GeekWire. In November 2013, Versive was selected by GeekWire in collaboration with the

Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) The Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) is a history museum in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the largest private heritage organization in Washington state, maintaining a collection of nearly four m ...

and the Bezos Center for Innovation as one of the ''Seattle 10''. This recognizes the most promising young start-up companies within the Seattle region. Context Relevant, along with the nine other companies, was recognized at the GeekWire Gala on 4 December 2013 where they also unveiled a sketch of their business concept on giant-sized cocktail napkins.

References

{{reflist, 2

External links

Official website
American companies established in 2012 Cloud computing providers Software companies based in Seattle Defunct software companies of the United States