San Francisco - Social networking companies such as Twitter and Snapchat may be the media darlings for tech investors right now, but according to the Wall Street Journal Friday a big data startup called Palantir may be even more valuable.
The 10-year-old company with roots in the US intelligence sector, has developed proprietary algorithms for data analysis that meld human pattern recognition abilities with the number-crunching abilities of supercomputers.
According to the report, Palantir, which counts the National Security Agency, the CIA and the FBI among its clients, recently closed a funding round of 58 million dollars at a valuation of 9 billion dollars.
This makes it more valuable than consumer technology darlings such as Pinterest and Spotify, each valued at around 4 billion dollars.
Though the Silicon Valley company got its start with the CIA and was even said to have played a role in tracking down Osama Bin Laden, it has successfully branched out in recent months to offer data services to large financial and pharmaceutical firms, making it more valuable to investors. - Sapa-dpa