Metalayer: data science startup chosen for enterprise tech accelerator, raises $30K

Metalayer, the DreamIt Ventures graduate focused on making data science accessible to businesses, may have recently downsized from four employees to two, but the startup is “not in the deadpool,” said cofounder Jon Gosier.

Metalayer was recently accepted to Acceleprise, an enterprise technology accelerator in Washington, D.C. that invested $30,000 in each of the participating startups. Gosier and cofounder Matthew Griffiths, who just moved to Philadelphia from the United Kingdom, will be telecommuting, Gosier said.

This fits into the startup’s pivot to a business-to-business model, rather than consumer-facing model. Metalayer hopes its product can turn a company’s existing staff into a team of data scientists, so that a company doesn’t have to hire expensive consultants, Gosier said.

The team has also decided to focus on bootstrapping, rather than looking for angel investment.

“We’re now only interested in Series A,” Gosier wrote in an email.

Metalayer left Callowhill coworking space Venturef0rth but plans to return once Griffiths and his family get settled in the city, said Gosier, who recently received $150,000 in the Knight News Challenge for a side project called Abayima that aims to fight government censorship in developing countries.

Two of Metalayer’s employees left the startup late last year to work at visual analytics firm Curalate.