Kasabi, a platform that hosted and published linked data, is closing down after owners Talis Systems said the market was growing too slowly to be sustainable.
The UK-based company allowed anyone to publish data sets, create APIs and use tools to combine and recombine them with each other. It was spun out of Talis, a semantic web developer that focuses on moving information to the web, last year.
But after just over 12 months on its own, the parent company said that while the opportunities were still interesting they were too large and too slow-moving to be sustainable. It said that the market for linked data wasn’t panning out as it expected, and it was “time to admit that Kasabi is not getting the traction we thought it would.”
Here’s the announcement sent to users, in full:
Over the last few years Linked Data has been going from strength to strength. Many more organisations are now seeing the benefits of applying semantic web technologies to help publish, share, and create value from data. As part of the Talis Group, Talis Systems has invested an incredible amount of time and effort in playing its part to help foster the vision of a web of data. Over the years we’ve had many successes, creating a flexible data platform and building a world-class consulting team. We’ve worked with many different organisations across many different sectors and seen some exciting projects bear fruit.
But there is a limit to how much one small organisation can achieve. In our view, the commercial realities for Linked Data technologies and skills whilst growing is still doing so at a very slow rate, too slow for us to sustain our current levels of investment.
We have therefore made the decision to cease any further activities in relation to the generic semantic web and to focus our efforts on investing in our growing Education business.
Effective immediately we are ceasing further consulting work and winding down Kasabi. We have already spoken to existing customers of our managed services and, where necessary, are working with them on transition plans.
On the company’s blog it said the decision had been made and in three weeks — on July 30 — the website and APIs would be shut down entirely.
It’s time to admit that Kasabi is not getting the traction we thought it would. For many reasons, organisations are not yet ready to fully embrace data marketplaces. We are still too early in the open data revolution for third-party data marketplaces to really have a clear niche. Many of the other startups exploring similar ideas have already begun to pivot and explore different aspects of their vision.
Talis sold off its library software division last year and said it would instead focus on growing its education business.
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