Data analytics firm Mu Sigma raises $108 million. December 28, 2011|By Wailin Wong | Tribune reporter Mu Sigma, a Northbrook-based firm that helps companies analyze massive amounts of data, said Wednesday it raised $108 million in fresh capital. Private equity firm General Atlantic, which is headquartered in Greenwich, Conn., was the lead investor. Sequoia Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has funded technology stalwarts such as Google and Oracle, also participated in the round.
Sequoia led a $25 million investment in Mu Sigma in April. Mu Sigma, which was founded in 2004, undertakes large-scale and complex data analytics on behalf of clients such as Microsoft and Dell. Put simply, analytics helps a business understand "why something happens, what will happen, so what and now what? ," said Dhiraj Rajaram, Mu Sigma's founder and chief executive. Analytics underpin marketing, supply chain and risk management decisions in industries such as insurance, pharmaceuticals, retail and financial services.
Wawong@tribune.com. Mu Sigma receives $108 million funding. The Rise of the New Groupthink. Facebook Hacks Shipping Dock Into World-Class Server Lab | Wired Enterprise. Amir Michael in the Facebook server lab that isn't Amir Michael works for Facebook, so it’s no surprise he’s a hacker. But he doesn’t hack software. He hacks hardware — and the occasional shipping and receiving room. By the end of 2010, the shipping and receiving dock at Facebook’s Palo Alto headquarters was no longer a shipping and receiving dock. Michael and a few other Facebook engineers moved in when they needed more space for the server lab they’d already built in the storage room next door. You could tell it used to be a shipping dock because there was a huge scale built into the floor. At one point, the scale was used to weigh packages before they were shipped out, but after Michael and his crew moved in, they used it to weigh the server they’d built from scratch.
Michael’s built-from-scratch machine weighed 10 pounds less. Like the other giants of the internet world, Facebook supports its online empire with a massive network of data centers and servers. Pages: 1 2345View All.