Insider Brief
- Foundational announces its general availability, offering an AI-powered solution for identifying and preventing data issues in data platforms, along with securing $8 million in seed funding led by Viola Ventures and Gradient, Google’s AI-focused venture fund.
- The company, founded by veterans from the Intelligence Unit 8200 and former executives and engineers from Singular and Google, aims to enhance data quality and governance, enabling data and analytics teams to make continuous code changes confidently.
- Foundational addresses the challenges posed by decentralized and fragmented data platforms, improving the scalability of data product development and management by introducing software engineering practices like code analysis and CI/CD to the data realm.
PRESS RELEASE — SAN FRANCISCO & TEL AVIV, Israel/ March 25, 2024— (BUSINESS WIRE) — Foundational, a solution using advanced analysis to identify and prevent data issues in data platforms, today announces its general availability with $8 million in seed funding. The round was led by Viola Ventures and Gradient, Google’s AI-focused venture fund, with participation from Asymmetric Venture Partners and executives from Datadog, Intuit, Meta, Wiz, and others.
Data adoption has dramatically grown along with many cloud technologies for handling data at scale, yet data teams still heavily struggle with key problems around governance and quality, trailing behind software engineering. Foundational, powered by a proprietary AI-powered code analysis engine that can be instantly deployed through git, empowers data and analytics teams to confidently push continuous code changes, safeguarding against frequent issues and harmful incidents that affect critical data. Founders Alon Nafta, Omri Ildis, and Barak Fargoun bring a rich history of collaboration since meeting at Intelligence Unit 8200 and have amassed significant experience through executive roles at Singular and senior engineering positions at Google. They aim to bridge the quality gaps in data product development at scale and simplify the data development process, enabling developers to make necessary code changes without the fear of causing unplanned data incidents.
Today’s data platforms have transitioned over the last decade from simple, centralized architectures, to become decentralized and fragmented. “It has become a remarkably difficult task for developers to confirm crucial questions like, ‘What dashboards will this schema change affect?,’ ‘Can I deploy this code change safely?’ or ‘What data pipelines do we have that are not working?’” said Alon Nafta, Foundational’s CEO and cofounder. “The inability to validate simple code changes, and the lack of visibility and controls, and the time-consuming nature of data engineering create a dramatic bottleneck on innovation and adoption of data and AI. We’re excited to join forces with Viola Ventures and Gradient Ventures to build new tools and technologies as more companies try to leverage data at scale and introduce AI to the business.”
“Data is exploding everywhere, and organizations that manage data properly will become the big winners. Software engineering has been able to scale tremendously through the use of code analysis, CI/CD and SDLC, and Foundational is now introducing these to data. We’re excited to support the journey of this exceptional team as they transform how companies manage data at scale,” said Zvika Orron, General Partner at Viola Ventures.
“The evolving nature of the modern data stack creates a perpetual challenge for enterprises to manage and develop data products at scale, especially in the age of AI,” said Darian Shirazi, General Partner at Gradient Ventures. “Foundational’s unique approach prevents changes to critical data infrastructure from adversely affecting existing data integrity, which in turn saves time and reduces business risk. We’re excited to partner with Foundational as they create a way for software engineers to develop new AI products without harming user experience or affecting business operations.”
Foundational is forging partnerships with leading data organizations worldwide with the aim of redefining how data platforms are built and maintained at scale. With this funding, Foundational will continue to develop its technology and introduce new and exciting product capabilities that benefit data developers as they build at scale.
ABOUT FOUNDATIONAL
Founded by industry veterans from Singular, Google, and SentinelOne, Foundational is redefining how data development and data management are done at scale. Through proprietary technology that can be set up in minutes, Foundational is introducing products and tools for data management and data quality at scale. For more information, visit www.foundational.io.
ABOUT GRADIENT VENTURES
Gradient Ventures has been investing at the forefront of artificial intelligence since 2017. We are led by former founders, technical experts, and domain specialists, who know how to take an idea to product-market-fit and beyond. Gradient Ventures is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. For more information, visit www.gradient.com.
ABOUT VIOLA VENTURES
Viola Ventures is Israel’s leading venture capital firm, empowering early stage start-ups to become global category leaders. Founded in 2000, Viola Ventures manages over $1.3B and has backed a substantial share of Israel’s leading tech companies including ironSource, Pagaya, Redis Labs, Lightricks and Immunai. Viola Ventures is part of the Viola Group, Israel’s leading tech investment group with over $5B in assets under management. The group has invested in over 250 technology companies. https://www.viola-group.com/
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