Looker (company)

Looker Data Sciences, Inc. is an American computer software company headquartered in Santa Cruz, California. It was acquired by Google in 2019 and is now part of the Google Cloud Platform. Looker markets a data exploration and discovery business intelligence platform.[1]

Looker Data Sciences, Inc.
TypeSubsidiary
IndustrySoftware
Founded2012 (2012)
Santa Cruz, California, U.S.
Founders
  • Lloyd Tabb
  • Ben Porterfield
Headquarters
Santa Cruz, California
,
U.S.
Key people
ProductsBusiness intelligence tools
Data visualization tools
Analytics tools
Big data tools
Data warehousing tools
ETL tools
Number of employees
500 (July 2018)
ParentGoogle
Websitelooker.com

History

The company was founded in Santa Cruz, California in January, 2012 by Lloyd Tabb and Ben Porterfield and occupied the historic Rittenhouse building there. The product grew out of Tabb's experience building software at companies like Netscape, LiveOps, and Luminate before founding Looker.

Looker makes use of a simple modeling language called LookML that lets data teams define the relationships in their database so business users can explore, save, and download data with only a basic understanding of SQL.[2] The product was the first commercially available business intelligence platform built for and aimed at scalable or massively parallel relational database management systems like Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, HP Vertica, Netezza, and Teradata.

On August 13, 2013, Looker announced a Series A round of funding from Redpoint Ventures, First Round Capital, and PivotNorth Capital, raising more than $18M.[3] Prior to the Series A round, Looker raised $2M in a seed round from First Round Capital and PivotNorth Capital.[3] On March 11, 2015, Looker raised $30M in series B funding.[4] In July, 2015, Jen Grant joined as chief marketing officer, and the company estimated it has 140 employees.[5] On January 14, 2016, Looker raised $48M in series C funding from Kleiner Perkins.[6] At that time, the company estimated 450 customers, including Jet.com.[7] On March 30, 2017, Looker raised $81.5M in series D funding led by Capital G. On December 6, 2018, Looker raised $103M in series E funding led by Premji Invest.[8] On June 21, 2016, Looker celebrated the release of Winning With Data, a book coauthored by Looker CEO, Frank Bien and Redpoint Partner, Tomasz Tunguz.[9]

On June 6, 2019, Google announced it was acquiring Looker for $2.6 billion.[10] The acquisition was finalized February 2020.[11]

In March 2022, Looker's CEO - Frank Bien - announced his departure from the company.[12]

Under Google Cloud Platform

The Looker Platform for Data operates today as a part of Google Cloud Platform and offers a wide variety of tools for relational database work, business intelligence, and other related services. Looker's 2019 revenue is estimated to be about $140 million.[13]

References
  1. "Looker". Looker. Retrieved 2015-01-11.
  2. "Steps to learning LookML".
  3. Carney, Michael (August 13, 2013). "Looker announces a $16M Series A and a savvy new CEO to rise above stodgy old BI solutions". PandoDaily. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
  4. Ben Kepes (March 11, 2015). "Looker Raises $30M To Further Its Analytics Aims". Forbes. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  5. "Fast-growing data analytics company Looker hires former Box exec Jen Grant (Q&A)". VentureBeat. 2015-07-01. Retrieved 2019-06-06.
  6. "Looker Series C Funding from Kleiner Perkins". Press release. Looker Data Sciences. January 14, 2016. Retrieved August 12, 2016.
  7. "Data analytics startup Looker raises $48 million, led by Kleiner Perkins". VentureBeat. 2016-01-14. Retrieved 2019-06-06.
  8. "Looker Closes Series E Financing Round of $103 Million". Looker. Retrieved 2019-02-21.
  9. Isenberg, Sara (2016-08-20). "Audio: Tomasz Tunguz & Frank Bien discuss Winning with Data book". Santa Cruz Tech Beat. Retrieved 2016-08-20.
  10. Dave, Paresh; Panchadar, Arjun (June 7, 2019). "Google to buy analytics software firm Looker for $2.6 billion". Reuters. Archived from the original on June 7, 2019. Retrieved June 7, 2019.
  11. Ingals, Elaine (February 14, 2020). "Google completes $2.6 billion acquisition of Santa Cruz company Looker". The Mercury News. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
  12. Chan, Rosalie; Langley, Hugh. "The CEO of Looker quietly left the company, two years after Google Cloud closed its $2.4 billion acquisition of the data analytics company". Business Insider. Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  13. Dave, Paresh (2019-06-07). "Google to buy analytics software firm Looker for $2.6 billion". Reuters. Retrieved 2020-10-25.
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