Singapore's Nugit raises 5.2M to make sense of big data using artificial intelligence

That's the premise of Nugit, a Singapore-based startup focused on marketing that raised 5.2 million in fresh funding from Sequoia Capital's India fund this week. Nugit landed undisclosed seed funding from 500 Startups and The Hub Singapore last year. Founded by Australia-born marketing executive David Sanderson, Nugit sits between its customers and their data platforms -- it supports 15 right now, including Facebook Ad Manager, Google AdWords and DoubleClick -- to help make sense of realms of information. The idea is to make a digital marketer's job easier by cutting down on noise and producing "decision-ready reports," such as PowerPoint presentations, graphics and other visualizations. The company started out automating many of the processes that marketers are faced with when dealing with data, such as cleaning information and aligning it, until Sanderson -- formerly of GroupM and other ad agencies -- realized that computers could go beyond that and deliver insight that is difficult or seriously time-consuming for humans.