Celebrating six years of Harbr

We’re delighted to share our new branding — and website — to set up Harbr’s next stage of growth. Having recently celebrated our 6th birthday, it’s the perfect time to freshen things up, reflect on our journey so far, and share our thoughts on the future of data commerce.

Back in 2017, Gary Butler and I started Harbr after experiencing how challenging it was for enterprises to generate value from their data. Six years on, we’ve seen tremendous progress — particularly for our customers — yet some of the core issues remain. That’s why we’re more motivated than ever to help organizations take their data strategy to the next level.

We’ve learned so much from our customers and the broader market. Here are two observations about the state of data commerce:

1. More companies than ever are monetizing their data. They’re using their own core channels (like Moody’s DataHub), alongside participating in public data marketplaces like AWS Data Exchange and Snowflake Marketplace.
2. Data remains a premium proposition, with the most valuable data products regularly reaching into 6-figure price points. Customers are now demanding greater customization and modern user experiences for buying and using these data products.

When we announced our Series A in 2020, Gary pointed out that “Despite significant investments in data-focused technologies and teams over the last decade, most enterprises are still unable to deliver targeted outcomes from data in a timely and scalable manner.” This is still a major issue in 2023, but the good news is that smart organizations are getting better at it.

The companies that are best equipped to take advantage understand the need to support data consumers across four key areas:

• Discoverability. Data storefronts and marketplaces make data products easily discoverable. The data consumer experience is as easy as browsing any online store, while providers benefit from increased upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
• Evaluation. Often cited as the most challenging part of acquiring data, improving this experience requires secure collaboration between suppliers and consumers.
• Customization. Unlike other digital products, data almost always requires some level of customization to be truly useful. Enabling consumers and producers to customize data products in an automated and scalable way drives value and reduces costs.
• Delivery. Customers need their data across all cloud environments and on prem, and want to consume the data via a range of mechanisms and formats. It’s crucial for data providers to meet this need whilst avoiding large operational overheads.

The organizations that are actively solving these problems are seeing incredible results: significantly faster sales cycles, larger addressable markets, and superior customer outcomes.

Thank you

So please join us in celebrating six years of Harbr. And most importantly, a huge thank you to our amazing investors, customers, and Harbrnauts for getting us this far.