Quickstep Technologies, a big data startup founded by a UW professor, was recently acquired by Pivotal. This is now the third startup that Jignesh Patel has sold as a co-founder. Patel is a long time computer science professor at UW, but he will now take a year away to serve as chief scientist at Pivotal. Quickstep has developed a unique data processing technology that allows companies to process data quicker and more cost effectively. You can read more about Quickstep here.