In a round co-led by Sapphire Ventures and Jump Capital, advanced natural-language generation technology innovator Narrative Science has raised $11 million. The Series E round takes the company’s total funding to more than $40 million. Quoted in Crain’s Chicago Business, Sapphire Ventures partner Jai Das wasted few words in explaining Narrative Science’s edge. “People like to read,” Das said. In other words, it’s all about the Advanced NLG.

Narrative Science specializes in using advanced natural-language generation technology to turn ordinary numeric and symbolic data and visualizations into what the company calls “intelligent narratives.” These narratives express in language indistinguishable from that of a human author all the relevant insights and context from the chosen data. This data can take a variety of forms, including business intelligence reports, customer communications, and regulatory filings – any information that is based on quantifiable data can be turned into an intelligent narrative. “People who don’t have skill with spreadsheets, people who might not have skills with visualizations … they can still get to the insights within that data,” Kris Hammon, Narrative Science Chief Scientist explained during the company’s demo at FinovateFall.

Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Narrative Science demonstrated its Quill Financial solution at FinovateFall 2013. The company, which celebrated its seventh anniversary in April, has been on a partnership spree in recent months. A deal with Sisense in February will put Narrative Science’s Narratives for Business Intelligence API to work for the company’s business intelligence technology, Sisense Everywhere. Also in February, Narrative Science partnered with FactSet to integrate automated portfolio commentary within FactSet’s analytics and client reporting platform. We featured Narrative Science in our look at artificial intelligence in fintech back at the beginning of the year. Stuart Frankel is CEO.