Big Data has become simultaneously 2012's most onerous moniker of hype and seemingly a shortcut to raising investment.

Yesterday's news that Coveo has taken an $18m investment from Tandem Expansion Fund (adding to the $16.7m they raised in series A/B funding between 2006-2009), comes after Attivio raised $34m of their own back in October and Cloudera closed a $65m funding round just a week ago.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Coveo Chair and CEO Louis Têtu (himself a significant personal investor in the company) said something fairly prescient, comparing the current excitement around this market to that of the period prior to the tech bubble bursting 12 years ago:

“There are customers and VCs throwing money at flawed business models and they figure if a company doesn't make money today that it will make it up with volume later.”

A slightly odd statement to be making -- having just accepted a major investment, don't you think? As for the tech bubble itself, well I think we all remember how that turned out.

Coveo themselves didn't talk specifically about Big Data, instead citing "big, fragmented data" as the market opportunity that this investment recognizes. Just as LucidWorks refers to "Dark Data" and of course Autonomy spent the best part of a decade banging the "Unstructured Data" drum.

This is all very interesting for industry insiders, but what does it mean for you the customer? After all, you'll be expected to come up with the cash to buy ample products and services to justify these investments (supporting, for example, a valuation of Cloudera at an eye watering, if unconfirmed, $700m).

It means that you'll spend even more time in 2013 getting bombarded with even more theoretical scenarios where Big Data solves all known earthly problems in less than specific ways. Our advice -- much as it has been through this year -- is to nod, take the free pens, and examine all of these claims very carefully.

As ever, we'll serve as your hype filter.  If you're a subscriber and want to discuss these trends, simply sign up for an inquiry session.