Advance, a global media group that owns the Condé Nast group of consumer publications, has ventured into the realm of data analysis, purchasing New York-based analytics firm 1010data for $500 million.
Advance plans to infuse 1010data with capital to expand its operations, so it can take on more of the growing market for big data-styled analysis services.
Sandy Steier, 1010data co-founder and CEO, in a statement issued Monday that there will be no disruption to its customers, employees nor to its business as a result of the acquisition, which will instead allow 1010data to grow more quickly.
The purchase is a bit of an unusual one for Advance, which has filled its portfolio with traditional media properties.
Most notably, Advance is the parent company for Condé Nast, which publishes magazines such as the New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Wired.
Advance also owns American City Business Journals, which publishes business journals in 40 cities, as well as 30 newspapers.
The company also oversees the U.S. cable company Bright House Networks, which serves over 2 million users.
Companies hire 1010data so that it analyzes large data sets for them, so that they don’t have to set up the necessary IT systems to do this work themselves.
More than 750 organizations use 1010data, according to the company, including many large companies in the fields of retail, manufacturing, telecommunications, and financial services. The company, which was privately owned, maintains more than 21 trillion rows of data on behalf of these clients.
Advance sees huge potential in the market for data analysis, given that companies in every industry would benefit from such services, noted Nomi Bergman, the Advance president of Bright House Networks, also in a statement.
The global market for analytics market will reach $125 billion in 2015, according to IDC.
1010data competes not only with traditional analytics software and platform providers such as SAS Institute and Cloudera, but also with a new crop of online cloud services offered by IBM and Microsoft.
The current management of 1010data will continue to oversee its operations. Advance will invest additional capital in reinforcing the platform for wider use, for developing new features, and to ramp up sales and marketing operations.