Advancing Analytics Secures Strategic Investment from Databricks Ventures

Investment deepens Advancing Analytics’ partnership with Databricks, making it the first UK-headquartered consulting firm to receive backing from Databricks Ventures

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Advancing Analytics, a leading European data and AI consultancy that helps organisations turn complex data and AI challenges into measurable outcomes, today announced a growth investment from Databricks Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Databricks. The transaction makes Advancing Analytics the first UK-headquartered consulting firm to receive investment from Databricks Ventures. Tercera, a growth investor specialising in IT services companies, is also participating alongside Databricks Ventures.

Advancing Analytics holds Gold Status on the Databricks Brickbuilder Partner Network, with 6 Brickbuilder Specialisations - one of only a handful of consultancies with such a designation globally - helping to accelerate the adoption of Data Intelligence and Agentic AI for some of the world's biggest organisations, including Aon, Unilever, Hiscox, Sega, WPP, ASOS, Hershey's, FIS, and the UK Government.

Founded in 2018, Advancing Analytics has built a unique business focused on helping organisations design, modernise and operate enterprise data and AI platforms using Databricks. Their deep technical expertise, extensive track record across regulated and data-intensive industries, and differentiated intellectual property create a unique advantage, helping clients accelerate innovation, scale more rapidly, and reduce operational risk.

“Advancing Analytics has built a reputation for turning ambitious data and AI strategies into systems that deliver value for clients,” said Kori O’Brien, SVP of Partnerships at Databricks. “Deepening our investment in this partnership means more customers can move from data complexity to real data intelligence, faster, and with confidence.”

The investment deepens an already close partnership. Advancing Analytics will expand its engagement with Databricks across engineering and go-to-market initiatives, focusing on core Databricks products, including Genie, Databricks’ AI coworker, and Lakebase, its Postgres database built for AI apps and agents. The two companies will also collaborate more closely to help customers leverage Unity Catalog and Lakehouse capabilities, building on Advancing Analytics' own LakeForge accelerator portfolio, including LakeForge Agents, which productionise data pipelines and reduce time to value by 12x.

“Databricks Ventures’ investment is a significant vote of confidence in the platform, the frameworks and the people we’ve spent years building,” said Terry McCann, CEO of Advancing Analytics. “Combined with our recent investment from Lead Edge Capital, this gives us the resources to go even deeper on Databricks’ platform and to keep solving the hard, unglamorous problems that stand between our clients and real AI outcomes.”

The investment lands at a pivotal moment for data estate modernisation. Companies across financial services, insurance and consumer industries are migrating away from legacy data warehouses and toward unified platforms, like the Databricks Data + AI Platform, to support their advanced analytics and AI ambitions. Databricks' latest State of Data + AI report found an 11x year-on-year increase in AI model deployments, with roughly 70% of companies now exploring generative AI use cases. That shift has created real demand for partners who can turn ambitious data and AI strategy into working systems, which is exactly the gap Advancing Analytics has built its business around closing.

The investment follows a recent strategic investment from Lead Edge Capital, a global growth equity firm. The combined funding will support Advancing Analytics' continued development of its proprietary frameworks and AI capabilities, specialist talent and international growth as demand for adoption of modern data platforms and AI maturity continues to accelerate.

About Tercera
Tercera is an investment and advisory firm specialising in AI-native and growth stage IT services. As experienced services operators, Tercera provides a unique combination of capital, counsel and connections to help teams navigate growth plateaus and scale faster.

About Advancing Analytics
Advancing Analytics is a multi-award-winning data and AI consultancy that specialises in scaling modern data & AI platforms. As a Databricks Gold Consulting Partner the company’s expertise is grounded in implementing enterprise ready Lakehouse architectures, MLOps and AI programmes. Its proprietary Lakeflow regulatory framework, known as LakeForge improves traditional engineering speeds by 12x, while its LakeForge AI agents uniquely handle engineering workflows enabling faster, implementation and ROI for businesses.

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in London, the company helps companies operating in regulated industries such as banking, financial services, and insurance, along with fast-moving consumer organisations, transform complex data silos into connected, AI-ready platforms that drive data-driven decisions across the enterprise. Advancing Analytics holds six Brickbuilder Specialisations with Databricks. Advancing Analytics is also a Microsoft Data & AI Solutions Partner with three Specialisms in Data & AI, an AWS Select Partner. Their offices are based in the UK, Portugal and the USA.

About Lead Edge Capital
Lead Edge Capital is a $9 billion growth equity firm investing in software, internet, and tech-enabled businesses globally. The firm has invested in a number of major software and internet companies around the world, including Alibaba Group, Arrive Logistics, Asana, Azul Systems, Bazaarvoice, Clearscore, Duo Security, Grafana, Holistiplan, LiveView Technologies, SafeSend, Toast, Wise and Yousign.

One of the main drivers of Lead Edge's success is its unique investor base, a network of more than 700 executives, entrepreneurs and dealmakers who have built and run some of the world's most successful companies. In addition to providing flexible capital, Lead Edge leverages this global advisory group to connect portfolio companies with the customers, partners, talent and advisors needed to accelerate growth. Lead Edge Capital was founded in 2011 and has offices in New York City, London and Santa Barbara.