A Unified Data Stack for Data Analytics? Definite Says ‘Yes’

Companies that are tired of the hassle of assembling their own data analytics stacks may want to check out Definite, a Delaware-based startup that just raised $10 million to build a shrink-wrapped, cloud-based, AI-ready stack for SQL analytics.

The typical data warehouse setup includes an analytic database to house data, an ETL tool to move and transform data, and a BI tool to generate SQL queries and visualize the results. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of various products in these three categories alone, making the possible permutations quite perplexing–and requiring the services of systems integrators or data engineer to make them work.

The folks at Definite have a vision to dramatically streamline the stack with an out-of-the-box solution that includes a database, an ETL tool, a semantic layer, and a viz tool. By pre-integrating these four layers, it eliminates the need for users to do any stitching together of applications or data–or at least minimizes the touchpoints.

Definite founder and CEO Mike Ritchie

Definite’s stack starts with DuckDB, an “unapologetically single node” open source OLAP database. It combines that with the open source Meltano ETL tool, which features 500 pre-built connections, and pre-built visualizations. Higher up the stack is CubeJS, the open source semantic layer from Cube, which helps to ensure consistency between the underlying data schema and the metrics and definitions used by human users. Its AI data assistant, dubbed Fi, lets customers ask questions of their data using natural language query, while its data canvas lets users fine-tune and share their automatically generated dashboards.

Definite offers several pricing plans. Its startup plan is free and supports up to two data source and up to 2 million rows of stored data with weekly refreshes. The growth plan, which costs $1,000 per month, adds up to 5 million rows of data storage, supports up to five data sources, and offers daily data refreshes. The business plan, which costs $2,500 per month, ups the storage to 25 million rows, offers unlimited data sources and hourly synchs.

Definite last week announced it has received $10 million in seed-round funding. The venture capital firm Costanoa led the round with participation by Acrew Capital and strategic angels.

The low cost and relative simplicity of Definite is designed to appeal to customers who might need to analyze a petabyte of data, but don’t want the hassle of building their own stacks, according to Mike Ritchie, CEO and founder of Definite.

“Teams shouldn’t need six months, a half-million-dollar budget, and a team of engineers to get answers about their business,” stated Ritchie, who previously was a senior VP of analytics at Bank of America. “We built Definite to make analytics radically simpler. With open-source under the hood and AI powering every interaction, we’re giving teams inquiry without the (SQL) queries.”

Costanoa partner John Cowgill says it’s common to see companies spending millions of dollars on a data stack, only to be required to babysit it with a full data engineering team.

“Definite is the answer to that pain: a powerful yet elegant solution that gives business users fast, flexible, and accurate insights without the bottlenecks,” Cowgill stated. “It’s exactly what modern teams demand—a powerful data platform that makes ad hoc analytics self-serve and fast without sacrificing trust or depth.”

DuckDB Walks to the Beat of Its Own Analytics Drum

Why Truly Open Communities are Vital to Open Source Technology

The post A Unified Data Stack for Data Analytics? Definite Says ‘Yes’ appeared first on BigDATAwire.