(NOTE: This story was originally posted to CRN.com July 7.)

Cool Startups For A Hot Market

The total amount of digital data will increase from 16.1 zettabytes last year to 163 zettabytes in 2025, (A zettabyte equals 1 billion terabytes.) according to research firm IDC. So, it's not so surprising that researcher MarketsandMarkets forecasts that demand for big data software and services to manage and make sense of all that data is growing more than 18 percent a year.

Many startups in the big data arena are focused on providing solutions to the problems of linking disparate data sources and moving data to the cloud for easier accessibility and analysis. There's also a growing trend to incorporate machine learning and other artificial intelligence technologies within big data software to make them smarter than they already are.

Here are 10 cool startups in the big data arena that have caught our attention in the first half of 2017.

(For more on the "coolest" of 2017, check out "CRN's Tech Midyear In Review.")