Qlik buys Podium Data to make its analytics more user friendly

Qlik, the data analytics company based in Radnor, has acquired Podium Data, a Lowell, Mass. business data-management provider whose clients include TD Bank, Charter Comm and Cigna, for an undisclosed sum.

The deal "expands Qlik's mission, moving beyond analytics to being a provider of solutions that democratize data" by making its presentation more user-friendly, Qlik said in a statement.

Qlik said corporate data systems have been "overwhelmed with information assets captured for uncertain use cases." Qlik CEO Mike Capano calls antiquated data storage systems "data lakes" and said most have become "useless" because they are hard to access and deploy, requiring a lot of confused interpretation for clients and end users.

Instead, companies that hope to use "big data" — the relentless collection of client, market and product information — need "the ability to organize data and make it analytics-ready," said Podium CEO Paul Barth in a statement.

Capano said Podium will be the base for a "Qlik data hub" for clients to "convert data from raw to ready." He plans to promote Qlik and Podium services in a "Data Revolution tour" this fall.

Podium raised $9.5 million in 2016 from investors led by Malibu Ventures and including Converge Venture Partners, among others.

Qlik, formerly a publicly-traded company, was purchased by Chicago-based investment firm Thoma Bravo for $3 billion in 2016.  The company employs around 2,000 and says it will hire all Podium employees.