Looker (company)

{{Infobox company

| name = Looker Data Sciences, Inc.

| logo = Looker.svg

| type = Subsidiary

| successor =

| foundation = {{Start date and age|2012}}
{{nowrap|Santa Cruz, California, U.S.}}

| founders = {{unbulleted list |Lloyd Tabb |Ben Porterfield}}

| key_people = {{unbulleted list

| Lloyd Tabb (CTO)

| Frank Bien (CEO)

| Marc Randolph (Director)

| Jen Grant (CMO)

}}

| location_city = Santa Cruz, California

| location_country = U.S.

| industry = Software

| products = {{nowrap|Business intelligence tools
Data visualization tools
Analytics tools
Big data tools
Data warehousing tools
ETL tools}}

| num_employees = 500 (July 2018)

| parent = Google

| homepage = {{url|looker.com}}

}}

Looker Data Sciences, Inc. is an American computer software company headquartered in Santa Cruz, California. It was acquired by Google in 2019 and is now part of the Google Cloud Platform. Looker markets a data exploration and discovery business intelligence platform.{{cite web|url=http://www.looker.com/ |title=Looker |publisher=Looker |date= |accessdate=2015-01-11}}

History

The company was founded in Santa Cruz, California in January, 2012 by Lloyd Tabb and Ben Porterfield and occupied the historic Rittenhouse building there. The product grew out of Tabb's experience building software at companies like Netscape, LiveOps, and Luminate before founding Looker.

Looker makes use of a simple modeling language called LookML that lets data teams define the relationships in their database so business users can explore, save, and download data with only a basic understanding of SQL.{{cite web | url=https://docs.looker.com/data-modeling/learning-lookml | title=Steps to learning LookML }}

The product was the first commercially available business intelligence platform built for and aimed at scalable or massively parallel relational database management systems like Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, HP Vertica, Netezza, and Teradata.

On June 21, 2016, Looker celebrated the release of Winning With Data, a book coauthored by Looker CEO, Frank Bien and Redpoint Partner, Tomasz Tunguz.{{Cite web|url=http://www.santacruztechbeat.com/2016/08/19/audio-tomasz-tunguz-frank-bien-discuss-winning-data-book/|title=Audio: Tomasz Tunguz & Frank Bien discuss Winning with Data book|last=Isenberg|first=Sara|date=2016-08-20|website=Santa Cruz Tech Beat|access-date=2016-08-20}}

On June 6, 2019, Google announced it was acquiring Looker for $2.6 billion.{{Cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-looker-m-a-alphabet-idUSKCN1T71QF|title=Google to buy analytics software firm Looker for $2.6 billion|last1=Dave|first1=Paresh|date=June 7, 2019|work=Reuters|access-date=June 7, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190607050405/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-looker-m-a-alphabet-idUSKCN1T71QF|archive-date=June 7, 2019|url-status=live|last2=Panchadar|first2=Arjun}}{{Cite web |last=D'Onfro |first=Jillian |title=Google To Buy Data Firm Looker For $2.6 Billion To Boost Cloud Offerings |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/jilliandonfro/2019/06/06/google-to-acquire-data-platform-looker-for-2-point-6-billion/ |access-date=2024-04-04 |website=Forbes |language=en}}{{Cite web |last=Krazit |first=Tom |date=6 June 2019 |title=Google acquires Looker for $2.6 billion to add its business intelligence software to Google Cloud |url=https://www.geekwire.com/2019/google-acquires-looker-2-6-billion-add-business-intelligence-software-google-cloud/ |access-date=4 April 2024 |website=Geekwire}} The acquisition was finalized February 2020.{{Cite web|url=https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/02/14/google-completes-2-6-billion-acquisition-of-looker/|title=Google completes $2.6 billion acquisition of Santa Cruz company Looker|last=Ingals|first=Elaine|date=February 14, 2020|website=The Mercury News|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=February 18, 2020}}{{Cite web |last= |date=2020-02-13 |title=Google completes $2.6 billion Looker acquisition |url=https://venturebeat.com/business/google-completes-2-6-billion-looker-acquisition/ |access-date=2024-04-04 |website=VentureBeat |language=en-US}}

In March 2022, Looker's CEO, Frank Bien, left Google Cloud.{{cite web |last1=Chan |first1=Rosalie |last2=Langley |first2=Hugh |title=The CEO of Looker quietly left the company, two years after Google Cloud closed its $2.4 billion acquisition of the data analytics company |url=https://www.businessinsider.com/looker-ceo-departs-frank-bien-google-cloud-layoffs-acquisition-2022-3 |website=Business Insider |access-date=19 April 2022}}

Funding

On August 13, 2013, Looker announced a Series A round of funding from Redpoint Ventures, First Round Capital, and PivotNorth Capital, raising more than $18M.{{cite web |author=Carney, Michael |date=August 13, 2013 |title=Looker announces a $16M Series A and a savvy new CEO to rise above stodgy old BI solutions |url=http://pando.com/2013/08/13/looker-announces-16m-series-a-and-a-savvy-new-ceo-rise-above-stodgy-old-bi-solutions/ |accessdate=January 14, 2015 |publisher=PandoDaily}} Prior to the Series A round, Looker raised $2M in a seed round from First Round Capital and PivotNorth Capital. On March 11, 2015, Looker raised $30M in series B funding.{{Cite web |author=Ben Kepes |date=March 11, 2015 |title=Looker Raises $30M To Further Its Analytics Aims |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/benkepes/2015/03/11/looker-raises-30m-to-further-its-analytics-aims/ |access-date=August 12, 2016 |work=Forbes}} In July, 2015, Jen Grant joined as chief marketing officer, and the company estimated it has 140 employees.{{Cite web |date=2015-07-01 |title=Fast-growing data analytics company Looker hires former Box exec Jen Grant (Q&A) |url=https://venturebeat.com/2015/07/01/fast-growing-data-analytics-company-looker-hires-former-box-exec-jen-grant-qa/ |access-date=2019-06-06 |website=VentureBeat |language=en-US}} On January 14, 2016, Looker raised $48M in series C funding from Kleiner Perkins.{{Cite web |date=January 14, 2016 |title=Looker Series C Funding from Kleiner Perkins |url=http://www.looker.com/news/press/looker-secures-48-million-series-c-funding-from-kleiner-perkins |access-date=August 12, 2016 |work=Press release |publisher=Looker Data Sciences}} At that time, the company estimated 450 customers, including Jet.com.{{Cite web |date=2016-01-14 |title=Data analytics startup Looker raises $48 million, led by Kleiner Perkins |url=https://venturebeat.com/2016/01/14/data-analytics-startup-looker-raises-48m-led-by-kleiner-perkins/ |access-date=2019-06-06 |website=VentureBeat |language=en-US}} On March 30, 2017, Looker raised $81.5M in series D funding led by Capital G. On December 6, 2018, Looker raised $103M in series E funding led by Premji Invest.{{Cite web |title=Looker Closes Series E Financing Round of $103 Million |url=https://looker.com/news/press/looker-closes-series-e-financing-round-of-103-million |access-date=2019-02-21 |website=Looker |language=en-US}}

Under Google Cloud Platform

The Looker Platform for Data operates today as a part of Google Cloud Platform and offers a wide variety of tools for relational database work, business intelligence, and other related services. Looker's 2019 revenue is estimated to be about $140 million.{{Cite news|last=Dave|first=Paresh|date=2019-06-07|title=Google to buy analytics software firm Looker for $2.6 billion|language=en|work=Reuters|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-looker-m-a-alphabet-idUSKCN1T71QF|access-date=2020-10-25}}