Thought Leadership
Cloud provider Snowflake is expanding its portfolio in the area of data management. As the company announced at the same time as publishing its quarterly figures, it is acquiring data pipeline management specialist Datavolo.
Ex-Hortonworks managers developed Apache NiFi-based platform
Datavolo was founded in 2023 by former Hortonworks managers Joseph Witt and Luke Roquet. The start-up develops a platform for automating data flows between different company sources. The technology is based on Apache NiFi, an open source project for data processing that was originally developed by the NSA.
With the acquisition, Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy wants to expand the range of data processing pipelines for its own customers. In particular, users will be able to replace single-use data connectors with flexible pipelines that transfer data from cloud and on-premise sources to Snowflake’s Data Cloud. Snowflake did not disclose the purchase price.
Datavolo raised venture capital of USD 21 million from investors such as Citi Ventures and General Catalyst prior to the takeover. The start-up promises to provide data processors that can extract, cleanse, transform and enrich data – including for generative AI applications.
Booming market for data management
Once the acquisition is complete, Snowflake will continue to support and co-manage the Apache NiFi project. Datavolo co-founder Witt emphasizes that the combination with Snowflake’s platform will enable customers to “generate added value from their data more quickly”.
The market for data management technologies is booming, not least due to the AI trend. Industry experts from Fortune Business Insights predict that the global market volume for enterprise data management could grow to almost 225 billion US dollars by 2032.
