Interesting. It makes sense with Fivetran and dbt being so complimentary, ingestion (Fivetran) vs transformation (DBT).
But I still feel like I'm missing, in DBT, capabilities for DB DDL/DML deployment (which I've done from Liquibase in DBT) for a fully CICD modern data stack. Preconditions, post-conditions, only-deploy-changed-code capabilities... Am I missing something in DBT?
The "modern data stack" market excluding of data warehouse / data lake is pretty small. Fivetran is biggest one and still under $500M in revenue, so they're acquiring other parts and starting to offer their own datalake (managed Iceberg).
Snowflake started offering fivetran-like connectors a couple years ago and I expect they'll double down there. Same with Databricks. Microsoft has Fabric now, but the reviews have been terrible (my experience included).
I think they'll each ultimately have a full data stack.
If you don't want to wait, we built a modern-data-stack-in-a-box at Definite (https://www.definite.app/).
those are heavy accusations to toss around and that the title would like you to conclude, but doesnt pass the basic smell check of fivetran's founders still having control of the company. dbt was the hottest company in the data world 3 years ago and is valuable.
Maybe, but now they could IPO confidentially as a tech company with high revenue with a multi-billion dollar valuation, which sort of sounds like their end goal
That was the first thought I had, too. When the dot-com bubble burst, every VC was slapping companies together to try to forestall the black mark of having a “failure” and balance sheet write off that they would have to show the LPs (investors) in the next LP meeting. It got so bad that someone described it as “tying together two rocks and seeing if they will float.” Needless to say, most didn’t. So, this makes me wonder if we’re seeing the first signs of the bursting of the AI bubble which we all know we’re in the middle of. Maybe it’s legit and there is real “synergy” or whatever, but the fact that this is two companies within the same VC portfolio makes it suspect.
That happened at a company I was at 8 years ago. It acquired a company also owned by the major investor. Layoffs started with a month. They whole thing shut down within 6 months.
> Data startups Fivetran and dbt Labs will merge in an all-stock deal, creating a combined data infrastructure company with nearly $600 million in annual revenue, the two companies told Reuters.
Thoughts on possible implications for users in foreseeable future? We built a lot using dbt and can't really think of going back or switching to alternatives
Fivetran isn't really much of a transformation layer so this is likely just a move to lock-in customers of both companies by upselling an ingestion/transformation layer to existing customers.
The bigger question mark to me is that Fivetran recently acquired Tobiko, the company behind a dbt competitor SQLMesh. The Tobiko team said their focus has been on dbt-compatibility because a lot of Fivetran customers use dbt for their transformation layer. I fear it may have just been a way to get rid of competition leading up to this deal. I can't imagine Fivetran spent a ton of money just to have 2 products that do very similar things.
We use both open-source SQLMesh as well as their cloud offering Tobiko Cloud. Following the acquisition, we were annoyed that focus was going to go to dbt compatibility because there was a bunch of stuff on their roadmap that would help us that was now deprioritized. Thankfully, they still offer great support to us and delivered a few features that have given us some quality of life improvements. With this announcement, I'm worried we're going to end up being forced to migrate to dbt...
I'm wondering too. We run dbt on-prem. Worst that could happen is we don't get any more free updates. But we have the software and it will continue to run.
What's the problem specifically? Are you banking on some future features? Can't fix the bugs yourself? Worried it won't be compatible with future data warehouses?
I know people don't like it these days, but you can just continue to run old software.
Interesting. It makes sense with Fivetran and dbt being so complimentary, ingestion (Fivetran) vs transformation (DBT).
But I still feel like I'm missing, in DBT, capabilities for DB DDL/DML deployment (which I've done from Liquibase in DBT) for a fully CICD modern data stack. Preconditions, post-conditions, only-deploy-changed-code capabilities... Am I missing something in DBT?
There's the slim ci best practice and ways to deploying only what's changed in dbt, but these require some config and underlying knowledge.
Verifying schema changes pre-production is only part of the issues, figuring out the actual data changes caused by code logic changes is trickier.
It's the right move if they want to IPO.
The "modern data stack" market excluding of data warehouse / data lake is pretty small. Fivetran is biggest one and still under $500M in revenue, so they're acquiring other parts and starting to offer their own datalake (managed Iceberg).
Snowflake started offering fivetran-like connectors a couple years ago and I expect they'll double down there. Same with Databricks. Microsoft has Fabric now, but the reviews have been terrible (my experience included).
I think they'll each ultimately have a full data stack.
If you don't want to wait, we built a modern-data-stack-in-a-box at Definite (https://www.definite.app/).
This smells like self-dealing on the part of A16z.
How so? It sounds like a pretty normal merger to me.
VCs often help companies find homes within their portfolios
those are heavy accusations to toss around and that the title would like you to conclude, but doesnt pass the basic smell check of fivetran's founders still having control of the company. dbt was the hottest company in the data world 3 years ago and is valuable.
You're so close to the subject of the accusation by association, that your commentary actually makes their accusation stronger.
Maybe, but now they could IPO confidentially as a tech company with high revenue with a multi-billion dollar valuation, which sort of sounds like their end goal
That was the first thought I had, too. When the dot-com bubble burst, every VC was slapping companies together to try to forestall the black mark of having a “failure” and balance sheet write off that they would have to show the LPs (investors) in the next LP meeting. It got so bad that someone described it as “tying together two rocks and seeing if they will float.” Needless to say, most didn’t. So, this makes me wonder if we’re seeing the first signs of the bursting of the AI bubble which we all know we’re in the middle of. Maybe it’s legit and there is real “synergy” or whatever, but the fact that this is two companies within the same VC portfolio makes it suspect.
That happened at a company I was at 8 years ago. It acquired a company also owned by the major investor. Layoffs started with a month. They whole thing shut down within 6 months.
is this why Reddit and Infogami merged?
Last month Fivetran also acquired Tobiko, maker of SQLMesh, a dbt alternative. Looks like they are going all in. https://www.fivetran.com/press/fivetran-acquires-tobiko-data...
And paying to eliminate competition along with way...
> Data startups Fivetran and dbt Labs will merge in an all-stock deal, creating a combined data infrastructure company with nearly $600 million in annual revenue, the two companies told Reuters.
last update we had was Fivetran had 200m in 2023 and 300m in 2024 (https://www.fivetran.com/press/fivetran-surpasses-300m-arr-d...)
if Fivetran continued at same pace in 2025, that means it's at 400m ish and dbt was at 200m. not bad for dbt.
Thoughts on possible implications for users in foreseeable future? We built a lot using dbt and can't really think of going back or switching to alternatives
Fivetran isn't really much of a transformation layer so this is likely just a move to lock-in customers of both companies by upselling an ingestion/transformation layer to existing customers.
The bigger question mark to me is that Fivetran recently acquired Tobiko, the company behind a dbt competitor SQLMesh. The Tobiko team said their focus has been on dbt-compatibility because a lot of Fivetran customers use dbt for their transformation layer. I fear it may have just been a way to get rid of competition leading up to this deal. I can't imagine Fivetran spent a ton of money just to have 2 products that do very similar things.
We use both open-source SQLMesh as well as their cloud offering Tobiko Cloud. Following the acquisition, we were annoyed that focus was going to go to dbt compatibility because there was a bunch of stuff on their roadmap that would help us that was now deprioritized. Thankfully, they still offer great support to us and delivered a few features that have given us some quality of life improvements. With this announcement, I'm worried we're going to end up being forced to migrate to dbt...
Are you using their cloud offering or just the software itself?
Just the software
What's the lock-in?
The cloud component is probably sticky if you have come to rely on those parts.
I'm wondering too. We run dbt on-prem. Worst that could happen is we don't get any more free updates. But we have the software and it will continue to run.
the concern is that dbt-core will become stagnant.
It basically already has since they started developing dbt Fusion, so in that respect this probably doesn’t change much.
I expect they’ll keep developing Fusion but possibly as even more of a commercial-only offering than it already was.
What's the problem specifically? Are you banking on some future features? Can't fix the bugs yourself? Worried it won't be compatible with future data warehouses?
I know people don't like it these days, but you can just continue to run old software.