Narrative Science has raised $10 million in new funding in a round led by USAA. The round included participation from previous investors Battery Ventures, Jump Capital, and Sapphire Ventures (formerly SAP Ventures), and brings the company’s total capital to more than $32 million. According to VentureWire, the investment gives Narrative Science a valuation of $100 million.
Narrative Science CEO Stuart Frankel said “our relationship with USAA will allow both companies to deliver highly-scalable solutions that will turn mountains of financial data into information that can be easily understood and acted on by millions of people.”
The investment in Narrative Science is more than just an infusion of capital. The company has also announced a software partnership with USAA that will deploy Narrative Science’s Quill technology to build a financial information library for USAA’s 10 million members.
Narrative Science was recently in the fintech headlines with news that NHS Choices selected the technology to help deliver healthcare information earlier this fall. Company CTO Kris Hammond was featured in the Business Insider’s Technology section this summer, and this spring, Narrative Science launched its free app, QuillEngage.
Above: Narrative Science CTO Kris Hammond (right) and Credit Suisse’s Tim Bixler at FinovateFall 2013
The Series D round comes amid growing interest in the intersection between big data/data analytics and intelligent/virtual assistance via natural language processing (see our coverage of the recent Goldman Sachs investment in Kensho). Indeed, reporting the industry of late often comes with “probability of computerization” infographics like this one from Gigaom, suggesting what kinds of work are likely to be replaced by technologies like Narrative Science.
“The Narrative Sciences announcement is just another baby step in this direction, where perhaps as many as 400 million people will have to find other work as their occupations are taken over by AI,” Gigaon warns.
Narrative Science has heard this one before. Most recently, in a blog post from August titled “Disruptive Technology – Nothing New to See Here”, CEO Stuart Frankel wrote that his first instinct was always to challenge the notion of technology causing job losses. But concluded that this was just the way the world works. “Old jobs vanish as new ones appear,” he wrote. “Otherwise, we’d all just be a group of unemployed farmers.” Frankel added:
“Will people lose their jobs due to technology such as Quill? It’s possible. But the reality is that the technology provides substantial benefits to both organizations and individuals. And in my opinion, those that embrace this technology will hold a competitive advantage in their market sector.”
Founded in January 2010 and based in Chicago, Narrative Science demoed its Quill technology at FinovateFall 2013 in New York.