Introduction
FriendlyData is an API for application programming. It creates databases’ natural language interfaces. With its solution, users can interact with ERP/CRM or sales data platforms in a manner similar to that of a human being while also building applications and acquiring customers through a human-language interface. The solution provided by the company converts human language into a SQL query for the database and returns data in the JSON format.
The machine learning, semantic parsing, and grammar engineering capabilities of FriendlyData’s technology enable it to power highly intelligent, human-like conversations in any business. Non-technical users will find it easier to get answers about their work thanks to its NLQ interface.
In May of 2016, Michael Rumianca, Alexey Zenovich, and Alex Zaytsav established FriendlyData in San Francisco, California. It had locations in Minsk, Belarus, and New York City, New York. FriendlyData was a private company with six years of experience in the field. The company focused on Internet Software and computer software. San Francisco, California, USA, was where the company’s headquarters was before its acquisition by ServiceNow.
In order to incorporate FriendlyData’s natural language query (NLQ) technology into ServiceNow’s Now Platform, the acquisition was made public in October 2018. Applications for managing customer service, human resources, security, and IT are available on the Now Platform. Companies that use the ServiceNow platform will be able to ask technical questions in plain English and get direct answers with NLQ capabilities.
History
Michael Rumiantsau founded the business in May 2016. Alex Zaytsav, Alexey Zenovich and Michael Rumiantsau, co-founded the company. Rumiantsau developed the product as a result of his prior work developing database management software for FriendlyData. The central command was in San Francisco, the USA.
The year 2017 saw the company attract investments. The project received $130,000 from the Russian-American accelerator Starta in exchange for 7% of the company. After completing the Starta program at the beginning of 2017, FriendlyData was selected for the 500 Startup Accelerator in New York, where it received investments totaling $150 thousand in exchange for 6%.
FriendlyData raised $150K from 500 Startups prior to the Seed round, which FriendlyData announced on September 4, 2018, raising more than $1 million from investors like Bulba Ventures, TMT Investments, and others.
The command of the Starta Ventures group brought a selection of potential high-tech startups from Europe and Russia to the US market in a steady stream. Starta funds invested in a portion of the projects, which went into a group investment portfolio. Startups could get advice from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and other IT and venture industry leaders within the ecosystem of Starta Ventures.
On October 11, 2018, the group Starta Ventures announced that ServiceNow, the cloud-based developer of the platform for optimizing business processes, had purchased the startup, FriendlyData, from the second set rossiysko-American Starta Accelerator. The amount of the transaction was not made public by both parties.
FriendlyData advertised itself as a developer of natural language interfaces for working with databases.
Product
Fetch
Fetch, FriendlyData’s enterprise data Natural Language Search Interface, went live in 2018. Fetch eliminates the need for costly developers or database professionals by making it possible for non-technical team members to quickly and easily access data in their own language.
Fetch lets you ask questions in plain English about the data of an organization and returns the answers in a format that works for you (charts, tables, or a direct answer). By making it easier for non-technical individuals to gain secure and intuitive access to critical data, FriendlyData has addressed a significant gap in the field of enterprise data. An amazing new tool is now available to individuals and teams that rely on accurate, timely data.
There are some features in Fetch that make it easy to use and efficient to access enterprise data. The most intuitive way to uncover actionable insights is through data visualization, which brings data to life and provides a better and faster method for identifying patterns, trends, and correlations in the data sets.
FriendlyData will eliminate all guesswork in the process of building queries by utilizing metadata to provide a user with a suggestion of the appropriate query. By automatically creating the appropriate query with just a few clicks, it aids in error reduction. Additionally, it has the ability to significantly boost FriendlyData’s parsing algorithm’s accuracy.
Users now have the ability to query their database in a variety of languages thanks to the enhanced text localization support. For multinational companies, this makes it possible for more people within an organization to have quick and easy access to enterprise data. With improved support for a multi-table data structure, users can query multiple tables and carry out analysis on the basis of data from each table that is required.
The on-premise deployment of Fetch gives you more control and is good for security policies that are strict. You can have peace of mind knowing that sensitive and important data will never leave your private network. Additionally, the Natural Language Interface’s seamless integration with your database is ensured by the Extended Support and Service Level Agreements, making it simple and effective for your business to discover data.
Funding
For its new product, Fetch, an analytical platform for accessing internal data, the Belarusian startup received seed funding. Twelve investors participated, including Belarusian investment firm Bulba Ventures. The startup raised more than $1 million with new investments, but the total amount of the transaction was not disclosed.
Micheal intended to accelerate the product development and market entry with the funds. Prior to this, FriendlyData received $150,000 from 500 Startups in February 2017 and $130,000 from Starta Accelerator in August 2016. FriendlyData was able to raise over $1 million with the new funds.
Acquisition
On October 11, 2018, enterprise cloud service management firm ServiceNow made the announcement that it would acquire FriendlyData and incorporate the startup’s natural language search technology into applications hosted on its Now platform, which includes applications for managing customer service, IT, human resources, and security operations. It will likewise be accessible in items for designers and ServiceNow’s accomplices.
ServiceNow wanted to make it simple for non-technical users to ask quantitative questions in plain English and get quick answers or data visualizations with the acquisition. FriendlyData’s natural language query technology will assist in reducing the amount of time spent figuring out how to ask technical questions as ServiceNow improves the world of work for people; instead, it enables users to simply ask a question and make use of the time that is now available to act on the answer.
The Now Platform’s interfaces will incorporate NLQ technology to direct users to relevant Performance Analytics dashboards and reports.
The most recent step in ServiceNow’s effort to use AI-based tools to make support requests easier for organizations was the acquisition of FriendlyData. Additionally, FriendlyData’s NLQ technology would be replatformed by ServiceNow, extending the Now Platform’s intelligence capabilities by making NLQ interfaces accessible to developers, partner products, IT, HR, CSM, and other ServiceNow applications.
Companies would be able to ask technical questions in plain English and receive immediate responses thanks to the NLQ capabilities that ServiceNow planned to integrate into the Now Platform. The objective of this technical improvement was to make it simple for anyone to make decisions based on data, thereby boosting productivity and propelling businesses forward more quickly.
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