VIDEO: Is Data The New Oil? How One Startup Is Rescuing The World's Most Valuable Asset

Is Data The New Oil? How One Startup Is Rescuing The World's Most Valuable Asset

Jay Coen Gilbert , CONTRIBUTOR

Brett Hurt of data.worldPhoto courtesy data.world

Brett Hurt is the founder of data.world, a benefit corporation seeking to increase meaningful access to data.

Brett Hurt co-founded data.world with the mission to democratize and network data. “People say that data is the new oil, but the truth is, it’s crude, unrefined and hard to find,” Brett says. The company’s vision: To unlock the latent value of data (now only available to giants like Google) by making data and best-in-class data analytics technology universally approachable to universities, nonprofits and people around the world. To maximize the long-term value they could create through this data platform for themselves and society, the co-founders, board and investors all agreed that data.world needed to launch as a benefit corporation. As more and more pre-IPO and Fortune 500 companies begin to consider this new corporate structure, I spoke with Brett about his reasons for using it, his investors’ reaction, and his board process for alignment and conversion.  

Brett Hurt wasn’t your normal kid.

“I coded for 40 hours a week from the time I was 7 until the time I was 21. I created my first internet game when I was 18. I had an unusual childhood,” Brett says.

As an adult, he is now a “contrarian” entrepreneur headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2005, Brett co-founded Bazaarvoice, the largest public SaaS (Software as a Service) business in social commerce. He served as CEO and President for seven and a half years, leading the company from bootstrapped concept to almost 2,000 clients worldwide and through its successful IPO. Previously, Brett founded Coremetrics and helped grow the company into a global, leading marketing analytics solution for the eCommerce industry before its nearly $300 million sale to IBM.

source Jack Uldrich

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As a result of this early success, Brett is also the co-owner, alongside his wife, Debra, of Hurt Family Investments (HFI), a family office that invests primarily in seed-stage companies (53 and counting) and VC funds (12 so far).

On July 11, 2016, Brett launched his sixth business with three co-founders. data.world, “a platform for data teamwork,” is a mission-driven company that received 100 percent investor support to operate as a benefit corporation to create societal value through growth, IPO and beyond. In February 2017, data.world closed $18.7 million in venture capital funding at double the valuation of its previous round. This second round brings the total amount of capital raised to more than $33 million. Their investors include Chicago Ventures, Fyrfly Venture Partners and Shasta Ventures.

“For what we do, being a B Corporation makes so much sense. The majority of community members access our tools free, and we make money on corporations. I’m passionate about this form of business and this form of being,” Brett says. “So much so, that we had a hand recently in getting Texas to pass legislation to make benefit corps a reality here. We were called on to testify and work collaboratively with them on it, and it got passed. This is something I authentically believe in, it is something I am passionate about. I feel good to have had a fingerprint on it, to know we helped to make a difference.”

In the following interview, Brett and I talk about his dedication to data, his decision to become an entrepreneur for the sixth time, and why he’s convinced being a different kind of business may be the only way to do business in the future.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaycoengilbert/2017/08/23/rescuing-the-worlds-most-valuable-stranded-asset-the-company-democratizing-data-the-new-oil/#52da75422b22

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