DataOps.live gets $17.5M from Snowflake, more for DevOps-style tools for data scientists

DevOps has changed the way developers build, deploy, update, and monitor applications on their network. Now, an eponymous startup called DataOps.live — which has built a DataOps platform based on learnings from DevOps, but focused on the world of data science — is announcing a round of funding following strong demand for its services.

The London-based startup has scooped up $17.5 million from new backer Notion Capital, as well as previous investors Anthos Capital and data cloud giant Snowflake.

Snowflake is really a strategic investor here: DataOps.live was designed to work specifically with data hosted by Snowflake. The plan is to use some of this latest funding to continue to develop improvements to this service, but also to invest in unstructured data work and with other data warehousing providers, according to Nick Halsey, COO. of the startup in the United States.

“It’s a hot market segment right now. We power the AI ​​applications that everyone is striving to deploy,” Halsey said. “Snowflake is the best at what it does. At the moment we only work with structured data, but we will expand to other cloud data platforms.”

At a time when funding cycles are getting longer for many startups – in part due to the current challenges of raising funds at prime valuations, and in some cases raising funds at all – it is worth noting that this does not been only 15 months since DataOps. The live team raised their $10 million seed round.

The interest in the company and the need for more funding is partly due to its growth. DataOps.live’s revenue execution rate has increased by 400% over the past fiscal year. And the startup claims that last year, over a million pipelines were executed, over 10 million jobs orchestrated, and 50 million data tests performed. He plans to surpass all of those numbers this year.

The issues that DataOps.live addresses are common in the world of data analytics: working with data across multiple containers and other locations can lead to slower development times, backlogs, and control issues. version – all problems get worse and more complex. as data pipelines grow (and they’re all growing). DataOps.live’s argument is that its platform can help reduce data management and usage costs by 30% by automating repetitive tasks and providing more insight into how data is performing. move to improve efficiency and safety.

Co-founders Justin Mullen and Guy Adams can claim to be precursors and even pioneers in the field of DataOps. Trained software developers, they built an early version of the starter platform while working at a professional services firm called Datalytyx, to create better structure around how they handled these issues for their clients. .

Part of the work they did was to code – from the platform itself – and to formalize the methodology, inspired by work in DevOps. They then created a community called TrueDataOps; they co-wrote a book (with others) called DataOps for Dummies; and they founded the startup by announcing funding today. (Datalytyx was eventually acquired by Mphasis, and the closing of that deal appears to have coincided with the launch of DataOps.live.)

Enterprise startups have continued to see a lot of commercial traction at a time when funding for more consumer-focused businesses seems a bit slow. Part of Notion’s business appeal comes from this, but also from the growing need for better tools for those who work with data. The DataOps platform market is estimated to be around $3.9 billion currently, to reach $10.9 billion by 2028, and it is also growing as a competitive field, with AWS, Alteryx, dbt and many others also in the same space.

“Data is the lifeblood of business today, but managing and scaling data operations can be a daunting task. Data needs can grow faster than operations teams can process them, resulting in slow or ad hoc development efforts,” Stephanie Opdam, director of Notion Capital, said in a statement. “DataOps.live is at the forefront of a movement that enables enterprises to improve data quality, simultaneously streamline many data processes, and accelerate product development. DataOps.live has a fantastic and growing team, a great product, and awesome traction. We think it has the potential to become the next class leader.

And given the competitiveness of the data warehousing market, Snowflake’s interest is very likely to give it a closer relationship with a player in the DataOps space that has already proven to be tightly integrated into its platform. form.

“DataOps.live enables organizations to build, test, and deploy Snowflake products and applications, just as they do software applications. They increase the speed of development and accelerate adoption, while maintaining governance and security,” said Stefan Williams, head of business development and Snowflake Ventures, when the startup announced its creation. “By expanding our partnership with DataOps.live, we are giving our joint customers the ability to collaborate with confidence within their organizations and beyond. We look forward to supporting the DataOps.live team in the next stages of its growth. »