A well-funded Galway startup has poached a former Bloomberg exec to be its boss
Data-analytics firm Siren has sealed a €3 million seed investment round.
GALWAY-BASED STARTUP SIREN has announced a €3 million seed funding round and the appointment of a former Bloomberg executive to lead up its worldwide operations.
Founded in 2014 by Giovanni Tummarello, Siren has developed technology that helps organisations, such as police and national security forces, investigate large sets of data in real-time.
The investment round has been led by the Atlantic Bridge University Fund, which has previously invested in Irish companies such as artificial intelligence firm Aylien and ticketing startup Coras.
A spokeswoman for Siren said the funding will be mainly spent on trying to grow the firm’s international client base.
According to documents filed with the Companies Registration Office, other investors in the seed round included Dublin-based venture capital outfit Growing Capital and Italian firm Sorint Lab.
Dublin- and London-based investment firm Frontline Ventures, which has the likes of fintech company CurrencyFair and retail tech startup Pointy in its portfolio, has also backed Siren to the tune of €250,000.
As part of the funding announcement, the company also revealed that ex-Bloomberg executive John Randles has joined Siren and will act as the company’s new chief executive officer.
Prior to his role with Siren, Randles was head of data management firm PolarLake, which was acquired by Bloomberg in 2012.
Randles also has experience as chief technology officer of the banking division at Siebel Systems – a firm that developed customer relationship management software – that was acquired by Oracle for nearly $6 billion in 2005.
Siren founder Giovanni Tummarello
Clients
Siren is currently based out of Galway and has a team of 26 people located in offices in the UK, Italy, France and the US.
According to Siren founder and chief product officer Tummarello, the firm has initially focused on working with national security services and police forces worldwide.
He said Siren helps these sort of security outfits sort through mission-critical data that is usually processed under intense time pressure.
“These capabilities have not previously been readily accessible in other sectors but we are now working with some of the largest financial and life sciences organisations to enable cross-dataset real-time investigation.”
Siren’s latest accounts show it made a profit of €101,000 during 2016, which pushed accumulated profits at the firm since it was set up to €192,000.
