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In this data-driven corporate world, data governance is vital for business users to leverage data assets. Organizations look for innovative ways to turn big data into actionable insights and gain competitive advantage. However, several companies find it challenging to collect, store, organize, share, and manage data at today’s rapid pace.
It is when data catalog software comes in handy as it helps enterprises organize and use data. Moreover, organizations need software to collect, manage, and analyze data assets. Alation is a venture-based, B2B software organization that offers data catalog, analytics, and management solutions.
This article constitutes Alation’s details, including the startup story, founders, products, acquisitions, funding, growth, and more.
Alation – Company Highlights
| Company Name | Alation |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Redwood City, California, United States |
| Sector | Software Development |
| Founders | Satyen Sangani, Aaron Kalb, Venky Ganti |
| Founded In | 2012 |
| Revenue | $1.7B (2022) |
| Website | Alation.com |
Alation – About
Alation – Founders and Team
Alation – Startup Story
Alation – Mission and Vision
Alation – Business Model
Alation – Revenue Model
Alation – Products and Services
Alation – Funding and Investors
Alation – Mergers and Acquisitions
Alation – Patents and Trademarks
Alation – Growth
Alation – Partners
Alation – Awards and Achievements
Alation – Competitors
Alation – About
Alation is a leading enterprise that offers several data intelligence solutions. Moreover, the company’s initial offering dominated the data catalog market. Companies can identify, understand, and manage their data assets with this data catalog tool.
Alataion is headquartered in the U.S. with offices in the U.K., London, and India and has a presence in more than 25 countries. With over 450 enterprise customers and 300,000+ subscribers worldwide, the company serves around 34 industries.
Alation – Founders and Team
Satyen Sangani, Aaron Kalb, Feng Niu, and Venky Ganti are the co-founders of Alation.
Satyen Sangani
Satyen Sangani completed his A.B., Economics from Columbia University and his M.Sc., Economics for Development from the University of Oxford. Currently, he is the co-founder and CEO of Alation. Sangani has diverse work experience.
He worked as an Analysts, Mergers, Acquisitions & Restructurings professional at Morgan Stanley & Co., Associate at Texas Pacific Group, Senior Director at Andale, Inc., and Vice President at Oracle Corporation.
Aaron Kalb
Completed his Bachelor’s and Master of Science in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, Aaron Kalb is the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Alation. Moreover, he is a part-time Partner in Alchemist Accelerator. He worked as a Software Engineer, Designer, and Researcher at Apple.
Venky Ganti
Completed graduation from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Venky Ganti is Alation’s co-founder and board member. He also worked as co-founder and CEO at Mesh Dynamics. Moreover, he was a Senior Researcher at Microsoft and a Member of the Technical Staff at Google, Inc.
Talking about its team size, the company employs over 700 global employees.
Alation – Startup Story
Alation came into the picture with different ideas to solve the same question: How can you connect workers with questions to colleagues having answers?
Co-founders of Alation, Satyen Sangani, and Aaron Kalb, determine the solution from two perspectives. Sangani theorized that machine learning could help, and Kalb theorized crowdsourcing could help. In 2021, they both combined these two ideas and created Alation.
Over time, the company improved its solutions, enabled data catalog efforts, and integrated with different data and related technology products. In early 2021, the company acquired over 250 customers. It launched the ‘Data Radicals’ podcast in January 2022 to help business, data, and technology enthusiasts use data powerfully.
In September 2022, the company announced it achieved $100 million of ARR (annual recurring revenue).
Alation – Mission and Vision
Alation aims to help enterprises create thriving data cultures where everyone can find, understand, and trust data. The firm pioneered the modern data catalog and now evolving into a platform for data intelligence.
Alation – Business Model
Alation leverages its powerful Behavioral Analysis Engine, open interfaces, and inbuilt collaboration capabilities to combine machine learning with human insight to tackle data and metadata management challenges. This tool has four major functional areas- data asset capture, data catalog and collaboration, data discovery, and data governance and stewardship.
The platform enables enterprises to catalog their data assets, capture technical and business-level information about them, and steward and govern their assets. With Alation, stakeholders can understand what data assets exist, what they are made of, and how they are being used, and manage data privacy, risk, and compliance.
Alation – Revenue Model
The company is a subscription-based model. The Alation Data Catalog offers a 12-month plan for $198,000, a 24-month plan for $396,000, and a 36-month plan for $594,000.
Alation – Products and Services
Alation offers multiple products, such as a Data Catalog, Connectors, Platform, Data Governance App, and Cloud Service. Moreover, it delivers a wide line of solutions, including Data Governance, Self-Service Business Intelligence, Cloud Transformation, Privacy, Risk & Compliance, Metadata Management, Digital Transformation, CDMC, and DataOps.
Alation – Funding and Investors
Alation has undertaken 6 funding rounds and succeeded in raising a total of $315 million. Its latest funding round – Series E Round, was conducted on November 2, 2022, and raised $300 million. 22 investors fund the company, and some main investors are Blackstone, Databricks Ventures, Union Grove Venture Partners, Queensland Investment Corporation, Thoma Bravo, Sanabil, and Riverwood Capital.
| Date | Round | Number of Investors | Money Raised | Lead Investor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 2, 2022 | Series E | 12 | $123 million | Costanoa Ventures, Thoma Bravo, Sanabil |
| June 3, 2021 | Series D | 9 | $110 million | Riverwood Capital |
| January 17, 2019 | Series C | 8 | $50 million | Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures |
| July 18, 2017 | Series B | 5 | $23 million | Icon Ventures |
| March 4, 2015 | Series A | 6 | $9 million | Costanoa Ventures, DCVC |
| March 1, 2011 | Seed Round | 1 | – | – |
Alation – Mergers and Acquisitions
Alation acquired 2 companies- Kloud.io on November 28, 2022, and Lyngo Analytics on October 14, 2021.
Alation – Patents and Trademarks
The company has 6 registered patents, mainly in the category of ‘Computing; Calculating.’ In addition, it has 5 registered trademarks, and the most popular class is ‘Advertising; Business.’
Alation – Growth
The estimated annual revenue of the company in 2022 is $100 million ($134,409 per employee). The valuation of Alation is $1.7 billion as of November 2022. With monthly visits to the website over 51,000, the monthly site visit growth is 59.27%. Moreover, the employee count elevated by 18% last year.
Alation – Partners
The company partners with:
- Snowflake
- AWS Partner Network
- Databricks
- Tableau
- Fivetran
- 3Cloud
- Acceldata
- Ahead
- Analytics Hub
- Anomaly
- Datactics
Alation – Awards and Achievements
Alation garnered many awards and achievements in its lifetime. Some of these are:
- Recognized as the leading platform in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Metadata Management Solutions for 4 years
- Winner of the Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice Award in 2020
- Leader in the Forrester Wave: Machine Learning Data Catalogs report in 2021
- The U.K.-based Great Places To Work Institute certified Alation as a ‘great place to work in 2022
- Leader in the BARC Score Data Intelligence Platforms report by BARC in 2022
Alation – Competitors
Some main competitors of the company are:
- Collibra
- Informatica
- DataHub
- data.world
- Denodo
- Databricks
- Aginity
- Unifi Software
- binah.ai
- Waterline Data
FAQs
Who are the founders of Alation?
Satyen Sangani, Aaron Kalb, Feng Niu, and Venky Ganti are the co-founders of Alation.
What is Alation and what does it do?
Alation is a venture-based, B2B software organization that offers data catalog, analytics, and management solutions.
What pricing plans does Alation offer?
The company is a subscription-based model. The Alation Data Catalog offers a 12-month plan for $198,000, a 24-month plan for $396,000, and a 36-month plan for $594,000.