Acquisition Aims to Unlock Potential for AI Data Agents

In Redwood City, CA, enterprise data platform Alation has announced the acquisition of AI agent builder Numbers Station. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Alation was founded in 2012, currently works with more than 600 enterprise customers, has raised more than $300m in venture funding and was last valued at $1.7bn in 2022. The company helps enterprise clients organise, catalog and access their data, providing AI-powered data products to help tap the potential of information such as customer records and financial transactions.

Numbers Station was founded by Stanford researchers Chris Aberger, Ines Chami, Sen Wu and Professor Chris Ré. Among its software helping AI models to cope effectively with structured data, are natural language interfaces that enable intuitive human-AI collaboration; enterprise-specific context awareness to ensure relevance and accuracy; and compositional reasoning to support complex, multi-step data workflows. The firm had raised around $17m in capital to date.

According to Alation, the firms' combined capabilities 'will accelerate the ability of data and engineering teams to quickly build and deploy a new class of AI-native analytics applications featuring agentic workflows that operate with enterprise-grade governance and context.'

Alation co-founder and CEO Satyen Sangani (pictured) comments: 'Numbers Station has proven the impact AI agents can have in the enterprise when companies are able to trust this new way of working and brings an exceptional team that shares our obsession with empowering data users. Together, we're laying the foundation for the next decade of enterprise data intelligence - one where humans and agents collaborate seamlessly to turn data into action.' Numbers Station CEO Aberger adds: 'From the start, our vision has been to enable anyone to be a data app builder. By joining forces with Alation, we're pairing our AI-native foundation with the most trusted enterprise data intelligence platform. This unlocks a future where agents don't just find data - they do more with it.'

Web site: www.alation.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.