Sparql City

Sparql City emerged to tackle the analytical demands of contemporary data systems. The company was officially founded in 2011, establishing its headquarters in San Diego, CA. It originated as a spin-out from Actian, bringing with it the SPARQLBASE product which was under development at ParAccel, the entity behind the core technology of Amazon Redshift. ParAccel itself was acquired by Actian, creating the path for Sparql City's launch.

The venture was spearheaded by CEO Barry Zane, a serial entrepreneur with a significant track record in data management and business intelligence. His previous roles include co-founding Netezza, which was later acquired by IBM, and serving as CTO at Applix, subsequently bought by Cognos. This extensive background in creating and scaling data-centric companies provided a robust foundation for Sparql City's mission.

The firm's core business revolves around providing software for Big Data analysis. It targets data analysts and data scientists, offering tools designed to simplify the manipulation and understanding of large, disparate datasets without requiring deep programming skills. The business model included both open-source and commercial versions of its product, with the enterprise-grade solutions being distributed through its parent company, Actian. The company's main product, SPARQLBASE, was built upon the W3C-standard RDF SPARQL, a query language for databases. This allows the software to function across various data structures, including traditional databases, Hadoop, and flat storage, making it adept at analyzing complex relationships in data, such as those found in social networks or financial systems. After its inception, Sparql City secured a $10 million Series A funding round led by Actian, with participation from investors like Garnett & Helfrich Capital. The company operated for several years before being acquired by Cambridge Semantics on January 13, 2016.

Keywords: Barry Zane, Actian, ParAccel, SPARQLBASE, big data analytics, data management, business intelligence, NoSQL, RDF, SPARQL, graph database, data analysis software, Cambridge Semantics, Netezza, data querying, Hadoop, W3C standard, data scientists, financial analysis tools, social network analysis