Google to acquire Looker for cloud analytics

Google agreed to acquire Looker, a start-up with a platform for business intelligence, data applications and embedded analytics, for $2.6 billion in cash.

The Looker platform integrates data at web scale. The company claims 1,700 customers, including Amazon, Etsy, IBM, Kickstarter, Lyft, Sony, Spotify and The Economist. Looker is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California. Investors included CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Meritech Capital Partners, Premji Invest, Redpoint Ventures and Goldman Sachs.

“Google Cloud is being used by many of the leading organizations in the world for analytics and decision-making. The combination of Google Cloud and Looker will enable customers to harness data in new ways to drive their digital transformation,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “We remain committed to our multi-cloud strategy and will retain and expand Looker’s capabilities to analyze data across Clouds.”

“The combination of Looker and Google Cloud advances our mission that we undertook from the beginning — to empower humans through the smarter use of data,” said Frank Bien, CEO, Looker. “Now, we’ll have greater reach, more resources, and the brightest minds in both Analytics and Cloud Infrastructure working together to build an exciting path forward for our customers and partners. Together, we are reinventing what it means to solve business problems with data at an entirely different scale and value point.”

https://looker.com/