Dremio Raises $160M Series E Funding for Data Lake Platform

Dremio Secures $160 Million in Series E Funding

Data lake platform Dremio has announced the successful completion of a $160 million Series E funding round. Adams Street Partners spearheaded the investment. Existing investors, including Sapphire Ventures, Insight Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, and Cisco Investments, also contributed to this financing.

Valuation Growth

This preemptive funding round elevates Dremio’s valuation to $2 billion. This represents a significant increase from the $1 billion valuation achieved during its Series D round just over a year ago.

The SQL Lakehouse Approach

According to Dremio CEO Billy Bosworth, the company operates within the “SQL lakehouse world.” Dremio provides technology enabling end-users to directly access data residing in data lakes using SQL. This access is designed to support mission-critical Business Intelligence (BI) applications.

The platform delivers performance suitable for critical dashboards with sub-second response times. Thousands of analysts can simultaneously query the same datasets without experiencing performance degradation – a capability Dremio terms “high concurrency throughput.” The company intends to build upon this focus with new features and growth initiatives in the coming year.

A Revitalized Market

Dremio is positioned within a rapidly evolving market, alongside competitors like Databricks. Traditionally, data lakes and data warehouses were considered suitable for a limited range of applications. However, the concept of the “lakehouse,” popularized by Databricks, suggests that these technologies now offer enterprises expanded data utilization possibilities.

Shifting Perceptions of Data Capabilities

Bosworth explained that advancements in technology necessitate a reevaluation of data capabilities. The term “lakehouse” conveys the idea that tasks previously confined to data warehouses are now achievable on data lakes.

Focused on SQL and Business Intelligence

While Databricks has a broader scope, Dremio maintains a specific focus on SQL workloads, business analysts, and mission-critical business intelligence. Although some overlap exists with competitors, Dremio’s current mission is considerably more targeted.

Investor Perspective

Brian Dudley, partner at Adams Street Partners, stated, “A top priority for every business leader today is to become a data-driven company.” He further noted that data teams face significant challenges, including accelerating insights, empowering data consumers, ensuring data governance, and avoiding vendor lock-in, all while managing complexity and costs.

Dudley believes Dremio is leading the charge in enabling data-driven organizations and expressed excitement about partnering with Bosworth and the Dremio team.

Future Plans and Market Resilience

This new funding provides Dremio with substantial resources to pursue its objectives. Plans include expanding the engineering team and tripling the sales force. A significant expansion of the company’s go-to-market strategy in Europe is also planned for this year.

Bosworth also highlighted that the substantial capital raised provides the company with the financial stability to navigate potential economic uncertainties. He acknowledged concerns regarding inflation and its potential impact on tech valuations, but expressed confidence in Dremio’s ability to execute its strategy independently of market fluctuations.

He stated that even with economic uncertainty, the company’s strong balance sheet allows for continued progress.