We’ve raised $8.4m to build the BI tool we always wanted

‍

We’ve raised $8.4m to fix the data analyst workflow and build the BI tool we always wanted. The round is made up of our recent $6M raise led by Accel and our previously unannounced $2.4m round led by Moonfire Ventures.

Whilst it’s a big milestone for Lightdash, we remain focused on our goal of empowering data teams with the best BI tool that matches the requirements of the modern data analyst. In short - the BI tool we always wanted!

‍

Where we’ve been

‍

In May 2021, we started working on Lightdash as an open-source tool to visualise your dbt project and store all your business logic in dbt. We loved a lot of the tools that were already available to us as data practitioners, but felt like we were being let down at the BI layer, which just happens to be where the rubber hits the road for the rest of the business too. So we set out to build Lightdash - the best way for modern data teams to build in BI.

Over the last 17 months we’ve grown our team, launched the Lightdash community, built out our first-of-a-kind developer tool to make analysts work more like software development. And folks are liking it! Lightdash has been adopted by teams at great companies like BeautyPie, Accenture, Warner Media, Chief and more. Today, a query runs in Lightdash every 30 seconds!

It’s also now easier than ever to get started with Lightdash as today we announce the public beta launch of Lightdash Cloud, our full-managed offering of the open-source product.  This is an exciting milestone for the team as we know a lot of our community have wanted to use Lightdash, without worrying about hosting and managing their own infrastructure. It’s available right now to get started!

‍

‍

Where we’re going

‍

We’re excited to continue supporting and growing our community in the best way possible, and the recent financing ensures we’ll be able to do this with things like Lightdash University, our place to help BI teams up-skill and improve their craft.

We’re also adding more faces to the Lightdash Crew, we want to ensure we can keep our rate of shipping as fast as it has been, we shipped >1 feature a day over the last 3 months! Alongside that, we want to continue providing the unparalleled support from the Lightdash team with 1:1 access to our own in-house data expertise as practitioners ourselves. This is something our community and users value a lot, and we love geeking out on hard data problems with them too!

Our product roadmap is also full of exciting features that we believe will be a big step-change in the data analyst’s workflow in how they develop their BI and ultimately serve data to the rest of their team.

‍

New faces

‍

Andrei Brasoveanu from Accel led the round and we’re incredibly excited to partner up! Andrei has personally helped build companies we love and respect like Tessian, Humio and Raycast. Paired with Accel’s track record in the BI and open-source space with teams like Sentry, Airbyte and Qlik, we know we’ve found the right partners as we scale up Lightdash.

“Despite being on the forefront of how we formulate business strategies, existing BI tools are increasingly unfit for purpose as the data stack evolves, failing to meet the needs of both the modern data analyst and data consumer. We love how Lightdash’s forward-thinking BI platform puts native integrations, open-source, and efficiency front-and-center.
Andrei Brasoveanu, Accel.”

Alongside Accel, we’re welcoming an all-star group of angels: Guy Podjarny (Snyk), David Cramer (Sentry), Ashley Kramer (CMO @ Gitlab), Lars Bjork (ex-CEO Qlik), Michel Tricot (Airbyte), Guillermo Rauch (Vercel), Tim Sadler and Ed Bishop (Tessian), Mirko Novakovic (Instana), Ameet Patel (ex-CTO JPMorgan), Justin Borgman (Starburst Data), Scott Breitenother and Ben Roberts (Brooklyn Data Co.), Nas Radev (Infinite Lambda), Colin Lee (Nayuta) and Ross Nordeen (Tesla)!

‍

With thanks

‍

I also want to thank our earliest supporters - we’re sharing our previously unannounced $2.4m in funding which was led by Mattias Ljungman at Moonfire Ventures who also participated in the latest round alongside Y Combinator and a stellar group of angels including Tristan Handy (dbt), Ilkka Paananen (Supercell), Bradley Horowitz (Google) and more.

And finally, the Lightdash community, our early users and the Lightdash team: Oliver, Katie, Jose, Priyanka, Javi, Ian and Irakli - thank you for your consistent hard work and commitment to the Lightdash vision.

Take a look at our open roles here

Read more about today's announcement in TechCrunch

‍

‍