Ravel, an enterprise-grade solutions company that derives hidden insights from big data using advanced machine learning techniques, today announced that it has been acquired by W2O Group, an independent network of complementary marketing, communications, research and development firms. W2O Group is absorbing Ravel’s big data analytics technology and pending patents, as well as the team of technologists and consultants that built and serviced the underlying infrastructure.
W2O Group provides integrated communications, business and technology solutions to diverse organizations in industries ranging from healthcare to consumer goods, entertainment, automotive, aviation and technology. The purchase price of the acquisition was not disclosed.
Effective immediately, Steve Blackmon, Ravel co-founder and VP Engineering, will be appointed as the new Director of Data Sciences at W2O Group. He and the entire Ravel development team will join W2O Group as a full-time employees, where they will consult with W2O’s clients on original projects and further development of W2O’s proprietary analytics products.
In parallel, Zach Richardson, Ravel co-founder and VP Product, joins The Daily Dot, the hometown newspaper of the World Wide Web, as its first CTO. He will continue to pursue his passion for startups at one of Ravel’s most important customers.
Both Steve and Zach, with support from W2O Group and The Daily Dot, will continue to develop GoldenOrb, the groundbreaking, open source, massive-scale, graph analysis framework originally developed at Ravel, as directors of a not-for-profit to which all GoldenOrb intellectual property will be donated.
“My team and I are excited about joining W2O Group, one of the fastest growing and most forward-thinking digital consultancies around,” said Steve Blackmon. “Ravel started out as a small data consulting firm. We compiled a talented team and developed innovative tools to help us solve formidable problems in a fully distributed manner. This acquisition is possible because of the efforts of everyone who supported Ravel and contributed to our success. I’m proud and grateful to have the opportunity to apply our experience with big data to W2O’s impressive portfolio of health, technology, consumer and corporate clients.”
“The emerging discipline of Social Commerce and the future of Pre-Commerce will hinge on an organization’s ability to makes sense of their data, and others’, ahead of the competition. Ravel’s talented team and technology will enhance our firm’s ability to identify and predict trends ahead of our peers through historical and real-time data analysis,” said Bob Pearson, President, W2O Group. “Our pursuit of innovation and reinvention requires the very best data minds available. ‘Data agility’ is key to continually offer ‘next practices’ to our clients and help them stay relevant and relatable to their constituencies.”
Ravel is the latest Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) software company to be acquired, joining other ATI alumni with successful exits to much larger companies.
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