DataStax acquires machine learning services firm Kaskada

Database-as-a-service (DBaaS) provider DataStax said Thursday it is acquiring Seattle-based machine learning service provider Kaskada for an undisclosed amount.

The acquisition of Kaskada will help DataStax introduce data-driven, event-driven, and real-time machine learning capabilities to its offerings, such as its serverless NoSQL database-as-a-service AstraDB and Astra Streaming, the company said in a statement. . AstraDB is based on Apache Cassandra.

DataStax’s decision to bring in Kaskada comes at a time when companies are looking to create smarter applications to increase the efficiency of internal operations and enable a better customer experience.

According to a report by market research firm Gartner, by 2022, nearly 90% of new software applications being developed in business will contain machine learning models or services as companies use the vast amounts of data available. for businesses these days.

However, enterprises can face scaling challenges and high costs when building AI-powered applications, as these programs cannot rely on traditional processes like Extract, Transform, and Batch Load (ETL), but must be built in such a way. Data analysis occurs directly in a data platform for faster decision making.

Kaskada’s technology helps solve these problems, according to a joint statement sent out by the companies.

“Kaskada technology is designed to process large amounts of event data as streams or stored in databases and its unique time-based capabilities can be used to create and update features for machine learning models based on sequences of events. or over time,” the companies said, adding that this allows companies to adapt to evolving content and generate predictions based on different contexts.

DataStax will release Kaskada’s core technology under an open source license later this year, said Ed Anuff, DataStax’s director of products.

The company plans to offer it as a new cloud machine learning service in the near future, Anuff added.

Kaskada, who has also been contributing to open source communities, has raised about $9.8 million in funding from venture capital firms including NextGen Venture Partners, Voyager Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Its co-founders, who hail from the engineering team at Google and the Apache Software Foundation, include CEO Davor Bonaci and CTO Ben Chambers.