Not much thought goes into the average spreadsheet. However, spreadsheets are increasingly becoming an essential tool for data teams.
Entrepreneur David Kircos knows this well; he previously worked at Techstars, the accelerator program, where he built financial models for startups.
“It’s best to build data models in Python, but many of my team members only understood spreadsheets,” Kircos told TechCrunch. “So I built some code to generate spreadsheets. It was painful; I spent about 10% of my time on valuable analytics and 90% on building infrastructure and pipelines to generate reports.
That experience led Kircos — who previously launched and exited a fintech company called Challenger — to work on what would become Quadratic, a startup that stealthily launched this week. Kircos describes Quadratic, which he co-founded with fellow entrepreneur Peter Mills, as “a spreadsheet that natively speaks Python and other programming languages.” It allows data analysts and developers to communicate with the rest of their organization using a tool (spreadsheets) that most people know how to work with.
“Quadratic is on a mission to create the best tool for understanding data,” Kircos said. “It is a platform that allows users extract data from its source (software-as-a-service platforms, databases, CSV files, APIs, etc.) and then work with that data using the most popular data science tools today, including Python, Pandas, SQL, JavaScript and Excel. formulas. »
Using Quadratic, users can import hundreds of thousands of rows of data, write analyzes in their preferred programming language, and share the results with external stakeholders. The platform offers workspaces for teams, support for things like charts, and plugins for collaborating in real time.
Image credits: Quadratic
“Quadratic is a completely new type of spreadsheet, not an Excel clone” » said Kircos. “We believe in the power of spreadsheets as the primary interface for working with data, but traditional spreadsheets are no longer enough.
A lot companies are trying or have tried to “disrupt the spreadsheet” – with varying degrees of success. Kircos did not respond directly when asked which suppliers he considered Quadratic’s main rivals.
There’s Sourcetable, whose main features include real-time document collaboration, data synchronization with professional applications, and an editor for querying large data sets. Neptyne, launched in March 2023, creates a Python-based spreadsheet for data scientists. Coefficient and Actiondesk focus on live data integration. And Equals seeks to supercharge existing spreadsheets with additional analysis tools.
But Kircos sees Quadratic standing out in two ways: it’s high performance thanks to an underlying engine built on Rust and WebGL, and it’s free for individual and educational use. Only companies and teams need to pay for access.
“Quadratic is an open access project, built by over six full-time contributors and 18 all-time contributors in total,” Kircos said. “THE The ability to integrate data from various analytics platforms creates a more efficient data and coding process for businesses.
Boulder, Colorado-based Quadratic, which currently has approximately 45,000 users, recently closed a $5.6 million funding round led by GV (Google’s venture division) with participation from Catapult Ventures, Betaworks, The Fund Rockies and angel investors including Pandas creator Wes McKinney, Amjad Masad, CEO of Repit, and Spencer Kimball, founder of Cockroack Labs. The capital will be dedicated to expanding the team and acquiring new clients, » said Kircos.
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