StrikeIron provided a
cloud-based
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 over multip ...
Data Quality
Data quality refers to the state of qualitative or quantitative pieces of information. There are many definitions of data quality, but data is generally considered high quality if it is "fit for tsintended uses in operations, decision making and ...
Suite including email verification, address verification, phone validation, phone append, and sales tax calculation solutions. The company was based in
Research Triangle Park, N.C. It was founded by Bob Brauer (founder of
DataFlux), Richard Holcomb (co-founder of HAHT Software and Q+E Software), and Robert Dale in 2003. StrikeIron was a leader in
Data-as-a-Service with its delivery platform IronCloud.
The company has raised over $16 million USD in venture funding. It was financially backed by Ascent Ventures, The Aurora Funds, and NC IDEA. It was acquired by
Informatica
Informatica is an American software development company founded in 1993. It is headquartered in Redwood City, California. Its core products include Enterprise Cloud Data Management and Data Integration. It was co-founded by Gaurav Dhillon and Di ...
in June 2014.
Prior to the acquisition, the CEO of the company was Sean O'Leary.
History
The company was based in
Research Triangle Park, N.C. It was founded by Bob Brauer (founder of
DataFlux), Richard Holcomb (co-founder of HAHT Software and Q+E Software), and Robert Dale in 2003.
The early vision of the company was to provide products that would help programmers and analysts to find web services. During the company's initial launch, StrikeIron offered its first product, the Web Services Analyzer. This software product was developed to provide fast analysis and understanding of
web service offerings. The Analyzer located and generated graphically the data requirements, functionality and applicability for web services.
In 2004, the company decided to focus on developing a Web service delivery platform and started writing
Web services of its own, resulting in the launch of an address verification Web service.
In 2005, StrikeIron rolled out the Web Services Marketplace, the world's largest online marketplace dedicated to commercial Web services. The Web Services Marketplace brought together a community of providers and users to buy and sell Web services subscriptions. StrikeIron also released a desktop-based premium version of the Analyzer that allowed users to easily browse through both internal and external directories. It included direct access to the StrikeIron Web Services Marketplace. Users could quickly and easily understand the data structures, data requirements, behavior and results of a Web service and select the right Web service for their needs without any programming or any additional software. The Web Services Marketplace greatly simplified the selling and buying of Web services for a broad audience of providers and users.
Later in 2005, StrikeIron released more of its own Web services like sales tax and
SMS
Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
solutions. The product portfolio continued to grow in 2006 with the addition of email verification, zip code information, and financial data services.
In 2006,
Gartner
Gartner, Inc is a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut that conducts research on technology and shares this research both through private consulting as well as executive programs and conferences. Its clients ...
named StrikeIron a "Cool Vendor" in B2B Integration.
Forrester Research
Forrester is a research and advisory company that offers a variety of services including research, consulting, and events.
Forrester has nine North America locations: Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, New York; San Francisco, California; McL ...
also named StrikeIron as a "Hot Company to Watch."
In 2009, StrikeIron narrowed product portfolio to
data quality
Data quality refers to the state of qualitative or quantitative pieces of information. There are many definitions of data quality, but data is generally considered high quality if it is "fit for tsintended uses in operations, decision making and ...
and
data communication
Data transmission and data reception or, more broadly, data communication or digital communications is the transfer and reception of data in the form of a digital bitstream or a digitized analog signal transmitted over a point-to-point or ...
solutions. The company was selected as one of AlwaysOn's Global 250 Top Private Companies.
Today, StrikeIron remains the leader in
Data-as-a-Service. It was the first DaaS company in the
Cloud
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 co ...
.
In 2012, StrikeIron won the "Cloud Computing Company of the Year" award, along with an award for best cloud infrastructure, at the inaugural Cloud Awards program.
In 2014, StrikeIron was acquired by Informatica
References
;Notes
Top 10 Venture Capital Deals in Q1 by Phil Goldstein, Fierce Wireless June 23, 2009
External links
* {{Official website, www.strikeiron.com
Software companies based in North Carolina
Companies established in 2003
Defunct software companies of the United States