SAP Ventures invests $15m in Recommind

SAP investment highlights growing industry focus on unstructured data governance and analytics

SAP Ventures, the technology investment unit of software vendor SAP, has invested $15m in unstructured data management company Recommind.

Recommind, which specialises in management, analysis and governance of unstructured data, achieved $70.5m in revenues in 2012 offering hybrid cloud solutions, and works with Fortune 500 businesses, public sector agencies and international law firms. The company describes itself as "profitable for the last several years".

SAP Ventures managing director Gaurav Tewari, who will now join Recommind's board of directors alongside Oracle chief financial officer Jeff Epstei, said SAP was particularly impressed by Recommind's CORE platform, which "uses machine learning and advanced analytics to identify patterns and concepts in unstructured, human-generated information such as email, word-processing documents, voicemail and social media".

Tewari said the platform is "poised to disrupt huge segments of the enterprise software industry", and that Recommind impressed SAP "with its rapid growth, its momentum in the enterprise and its ability to solve critical problems across a range of industries, including legal, healthcare and financial services".

He continued: "The secular, explosive growth in unstructured data provides significant tailwinds for Recommind to become one of the defining next-generation enterprise leaders within the sector."

Recommind CEO Bob Tennant calls unstructured data the "fastest growing part of modern business", but maintains that "right now it is managed ineffectively".