Data visualisation startup Silk is acquired by Palantir for an undisclosed amount. The Amsterdam-based company announced the team will be joining the Silicon Valley unicorn.
Clearly the acquisition is an ‘acqui-hire’ or a ‘manquisition’, as the startup will no longer be further developed. Silk will not be able to provide technical or customer support. However, the platform will still exist, it is possible to create new visualizations and nothing happens to existing Silks.
Palantir and Silk
Palantir, co-founded by Peter Thiel, is a rather secretive company. It analyzes big chunks of data and has clients like the FBI, CIA and NSA. Although the secrecy, it is no surprise why Palantir acquired this company: it probably wants the in-house knowledge of Silk’s data visualization skills.
Silk was founded in 2010 by Salar al Khafaji and Lon Boonen. The startup raised nearly 3 million euro in total, backed by powerhouses New Enterprise Associates and Atomico in the past.
“When we met the Palantir team, we realized that we could work on even bigger and more important data problems with an incredibly talented team – even if it meant no longer working on the product. We decided to join Palantir because we believe we can achieve a larger impact there than we could at Silk alone”, Al Khafaji said in the blog.
Image: YayMicro via Dashmote