Deals in focus: CallidusCloud’s €12 million Datahug buy

Should a start-up stay the course for world domination, or take the money and run?

Ray Smith, co-founder of analytics start-up Datahug

For years, Datahug dominated top tech start-up lists. When it was founded in 2010, it immediately grabbed a lot of the right kind of attention.

The analytics company won the Spark of Genius Award in 2010, the ITLG Award in 2012, and was backed by veteran tech investors Bill McCabe, Ron Conway and Paddy Power Betfair chief executive Breon Corcoran.

“Things were trucking along really nicely,” Datahug co-founder Ray Smith recalls. “Throughout all ...