Much has changed in the world of big data & analytics since we first invested in Dremio in 2018. Data lakes, which were largely synonymous with the term Big Data since the emergence of Hadoop as a force more than half a decade ago, saw sometimes disappointing commercial consolidation (Cloudera & Hortworks, HPE & MapR) on one hand, contrasted by the establishment of core data lake technology as a component of analytical reference stacks on the other.
Google acquired Looker, bringing a cloud first analytical platform closer to BigQuery and strengthening its competitive positioning vs. Microsoft’s Power BI. Machine Learning (and data projects in general) continue to march ahead as the killer apps of the cloud world, driving the consumption of storage and compute.
What hasn’t changed, particularly as data volumes continue to skyrocket, is the need in the market for companies that solve problems related to data fragmentation, instant access to large data sets, and (as spend increasingly becomes top of mind), a mindset towards reducing total cost of ownership. If anything, these issues have become more acute over the past two years.
Dremio has made tremendous progress since 2018 – they’ve created a simpler, faster, and less expensive data platform that enables customers to manage data without moving data, all without lock-in to a particular data store technology or vendor. The company has grown its team, its customer base, and its revenue significantly.
The partnership between Dremio and Cisco has also been a strong one – we’ve authored a solution brief that outlines a path to accelerate SQL on Hadoop, with UCS and Dremio, we’ve presented together to mutual and potential customers, and it’s been a great pleasure to work with Tomer, Jacques and now Billy, as well as the rest of their very talented team.
I’m always excited and proud when our portfolio companies announce milestones – this one is particularly meaningful, given the challenging times that our team members (and I include our entrepreneurs and syndicate partners in this), their families, and the world are currently navigating.
Dremio announced today the close of their $70mm Series C, led by Insight Venture Partners.
To the team at Dremio – looking forward to the seeing how the next chapter unfolds.