“As evidenced by financing and deal activity, Big Data is gaining steam,” the report stated. The number of big data venture deals in 2012 rose by nearly 20 percent as compared with the previous year, going from 132 deals to 164. In the fourth quarter of 2012 alone, there were 49 venture deals for big data plays.

Among them are Basho, ClearStory Data, Continuuity, Drawn to Scale, Mortar Data and WibiData.

Despite the bump in number of deals, the total amount of money VCs threw at big data startups in 2012 — $1.39 billion — was down by nearly 7 percent year over year. The median deal size decreased slightly, from $6 million to $5.7 million.

The recipients of the biggest big data investments of 2012 were, in descending order, Cloudera ($65 million), Palantir Technologies ($56.1 million), Rocket Fuel ($50 milion), 10gen ($42 million) and Nimble Storage ($40.7 million).

Which VC firms closed the most big data deals last year? SV Angel, which invested in 14 companies. Sequoia Capital and IA Ventures tied for third, with 13 deals each, followed by New Enterprise Associates with 12 and First Round Capital with 10.

The percentage of deals for big data infrastructure in relation to all big data funding continued to fall, while big data analytics has risen to a high of 48 percent of all deals. (The other category listed in the report is big data applications.)

By far, California has been the leading state for big data venture deals in the past five years, with 230 in 2008-2012. New York, with 67 in that same time window, and Massachusetts, with 57, lag far behind.

Assuming the trend lines continue, then, you would be most likely to get funded if you run a big data analytics company in California.

As for 2013, the report cites a few big data investments VCs have already made so far: Sailthru and Nomi.

Others include Ayasdi and Think Big Analytics, whose founder and CEO, Ron Bodkin, will speak at GigaOM’s Structure:Data conference in New York in a few weeks.

In addition to Bodkin, entrepreneurs from other venture-backed big data startups who will speak at the conference include Justin Sheehy, chief technology officer at Basho; Jonathan Gray, Continuuity’s founder; Bradford Stephens, Drawn to Scale’s CEO; and Doug Daniels, chief technology officer of Mortar Data.

Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock user extradeda.

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(c) 2012 Pinar Ozger. pinar@pinarozger.com

Scott Metzger, vice president of analytics at flash-memory array maker Violin Memory, argued Thursday at Structure:Data that putting flash memory at the heart of big-data infrastructure is a must for any business that is worried about how long it takes to get results from data analysis. Metzger’s got a dog in this fight, of course–Violin Memory makes storage arrays designed around flash memory–but it’s true that flash memory operates faster than hard disks or tape storage.

In one case study he presented, Metzger said that flash-memory storage improved the latency–the delay occurring when a signal moves from one point to another–by up to 50 times faster compared to storage-area networks based on disks. And because flash memory also operates at a far lower temperature than disks, companies that use flash-memory storage can reduce their power and cooling requirements by 80 percent compared to traditional requirements.

This probably isn’t for everybody: Metzger acknowledged that customers just looking for archive and backup storage don’t need to pay the up-front costs of investing in flash memory.

Watch the livestream of Structure:Data here.

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