Reflect CEO Alex Bilmes at Techstars Seattle Demo Day 2016.
Reflect CEO Alex Bilmes at Techstars Seattle Demo Day 2016.

Reflect is raising cash to help developers make data visualizations.

The Portland startup today announced a $2.5 million seed funding round led by DFJ that also included participation from Founders’ Co-Op, Liquid 2 Ventures, Techstars, Stanford University, and several angel investors like Parse co-founder Ilya Sukhar and Simple co-founder Alex Payne.

Reflect, a Techstars Seattle 2016 graduate and one of our “startups to watch” from Demo Day in May, gives developers an easy way to add data visualization, like charts and graphs, to their web and mobile applications.

“Right now, developers are forced to do this on their own,” Reflect CEO Alex Bilmes told GeekWire. “Reflect gives them an easy-to-use platform that removes a lot of the complexity of building data heavy interfaces. Other companies have tried to address this market, but haven’t had the architecture or culture to do it in a way that developers need.”

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Tools like AWS, Twilio and Stripe have helped spur a trend around paying for technical functionality versus a company building its own software. Reflect does the same, but for data visualization, helping companies produce dashboards, reports, and other visual content while saving both time and money.

Chris Devore, general partner at Founder’s Co-op, told GeekWire that his fund is optimistic about the “componentization of software.”

reflect11“We’ve seen the power of this approach with developer-facing products like Stripe, Twilio and Auth0,” he noted. “These companies turn complex but necessary engineering tasks into simple API calls, reducing complexity and freeing development teams to work on the truly unique and differentiating elements of their applications. Reflect does this for data visualization by helping developers turn raw data into beautiful interactive visualizations.”

Bill Bryant, partner at DFJ, added that “the modern application is increasingly a compilation of microservices, reusable components and APIs where the magic is in the overall user experience.”

“There is no need to reinvent basic functionality, time and time again,” he said in a statement. “Services like Reflect simplify developer complexity, while reducing time to market and cost.”

The 5-person company will use the fresh funding to expand its engineering team and grow its developer community, said Bilmes, who co-founded Reflect with former Cloudability colleague Brad Heller. Jive Software CEO Dave Hersh is joining Reflect’s board as a result of the funding.

You can learn more about Reflect and its founding team with this Startup Spotlight.

Reflect’s funding round follows fellow Techstars Seattle 2016 grad Shyft, which raised $1.5 million earlier this month for its employee shift-swapping platform.

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