Financial Software - Thursday, February 28, 2008
MSFT Buys Israeli Analytics Firm YaData
Microsoft has bought Israel's YaData, which sells micro-segmentation for several industries: online advertising, telecom, banking, insurance, and credit cards.
If you don't have some background in knowledge management, YaData is going to seen alien, but here goes. YaData's segmentation suite is comprises of 2 products, the Segment Discovery and Ranking engine (SDR) and the Segment Relationship management nodule (SRM). Based on customer data (usage, demographics, surveys, etc.), the SDR creates a list of segments ranked according to their business relevancy, and requires no hypothesis or ad-hoc model building. The SDR is governed by a ranking method which combines both statistical algorithms and business filters, to sieve through micro-segments and find the most actionable, business relevant segments.
YaData's CEO and co-founder is Amir Peleg who founded Unipier (fka Cash-U) in Jan. 2000 and was its CEO until February 2004.
Israels' business bible Globes reports that the selling price was in the $20-$30M range. YaData was founded in July 2006. Investors include Giza Venture Capital and Ofer Hi Tech.
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